Take this thing anywhere
Written: Mar 16 '04 (Updated Mar 16 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Portability and collapsibility, color scheme
Cons: Toys don't stay in place very well
The Bottom Line: I'm recommending it only to those who will be taking this with their baby everywhere.
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| chretiensucks's Full Review: Lamaze Phase One Pop & Drop Activity Gym |
Trying to find something to stimulate your baby can sometimes be quite a daunting task. For those overachieving parents, their baby’s first few months is probably surrounded by all sorts of noise-making, reflective, colorful, fully and creatively-textured toys. Our baby was no exception.
One necessary staple in our view was an activity gym. We received the Lamaze Phase One activity gym as a gift and had plenty of other Lamaze toys to attach to the arched bridge.
Fabrics and Materials
All materials have tasteful colors (prevalent color being blue) and are easily surface washable. The hanging toy sun that came with it seems of special interest to our baby. Its bottom has a plastic mirror and the top, a happy face.
The soft-bordered oval floor mat component itself also has a cloud formed as a pocket so a little sun can be pulled out of it as well as pictures of little bugs and stars.
Portability
The gym is easily folded in half with the each side of the mat meeting the arch and velcroed together by the handle. We brought it with us on a recent trip and it occupied very little space. And if your soft toys are small enough, you can leave them in the folded up gym and carry them around as well.
Positioning and Adjustability
One problem is the arch from which all the toys hang from. Not too much of a problem when your baby is under 3 or 4 months since all s(he) will do is basically bat a the toys with hand. As our baby got older, he’d grab at the toys and pull them causing the arch to bend all the way down to one side of the mat.
Even when not grabbing at the toys, our baby was able to lift his legs up and push the arch down (I guess he really is treating this like a gym). This also causes a big speed bump like crease on the mat.
Once down, that arch never comes back up unless you pull it back and flatten out the mat, and even then it still tends to flop over one way or another. This will be even more of a problem when you hang the larger toys. And without the arch up, there’s nothing left for the baby to play with. At that point, our baby will basically just roll of the mat and start doing something else.
This is where some of its competition (e.g. Tiny Love Activity Gyms) with crossing arches have a huge advantage.
Conclusion
If you think you’ll be moving the activity gym around with the baby frequently and your priority is easy collapsibility, this is for you. If you don’t want to be constantly flattening out the mat and readjusting the arch, look at one of the square or rectangular activity gyms with the more supportive intersecting arches. I'd like to give this gym 3 and a half stars but settled with 4 because subjectively, I prefer its color scheme over the other gyms.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
chretiensucks
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Member: joe unpronounceable
Location: GTA, Ontario, Canada
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
How do people with more than one child do it?
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