Supersize it! Buy TWO!
Written: May 27 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: portable, flexible, and fun!
Cons: it folds? Well, not exactly...
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| ceylona's Full Review: Todays Kids Infant-Toddler Playland |
We put two together for a super sized play enclosure!
When our son started figuring out how to crawl, the husband and I started to get nervous. We have hardwood floors, and plenty of places for a baby to get into trouble. We started thinking about safety gates, but none we looked at suited our extensive needs. What would block this nook, that cranny? What would protect his head from contact with furniture corners and the like? Would our home have to look like a battlefield of gates rather than barbed wire fences? Or a jail cell full of bars? Today's Kids offered us a perfect solution with the Infant/Toddler Playland!
One set is made up of 6 colorful and sturdy plastic panels that fit together to form a hexagon shaped enclosure about 4 feet in diameter, standing approx. two feet high. Two of the panels have infant/toddler activities built in for their amusement. The remaining 4 panels are designed with cutout bars for easy visibility of your youngsters.
My husband and I noted that these panels are removable for storage and portability, and that any panel may be attached to any other one, finally becoming an enclosure by attaching the two end panels together. If you add extra panels, we thought, you could make this enclosure as large or small as your needs require. Hmm...
We contacted Today's Kids, and sure enough, you can buy single plain bar panels for approx. $17-20 (can't remember exactly) per panel! We elected to purchase 2 entire sets of 6. It's amazing the size and shapes of the enclosure that can be made with 12 panels! The bar and hook design of the connectors makes for a lot of flexibility in shape when it gets to such a large size. With 10 panels we've made a room filling rectangular enclosure, approx. 6 feet by 4 feet...that's good crawling room! The flexibility makes the enclosure shapeable for situations such as odd shaped rooms.
By having a large freestanding enclosure, our son has adequate crawling space, yet is protected from furniture corners and from wandering out of sight. We have no worries if we need to step out of the room for a moment, either. Freestanding means no hassles with sizing gates and ruining walls.
By purchasing two complete sets, we have the bonus of four activity panels (even though it's two sets of twins, not four different panels). The yellow panels come equipped with thin plastic cutouts of a cat, a dog and a penguin. These cutouts make durable chewables for teething infants, but are made to be fitted into correspondingly shaped holes in the yellow panel. Then watch them do acrobatics as they slide down the panel into little flip-door houses! Can an infant do this? Unlikely, but they sure like to watch Mommy or an older toddler do it, and of course they can chew on the removable parts...
The white panels contain more infant-suited activities: A removable phone handset next to a rotary dial, a sliding window shutter that reveals a girl with kitten on one side, a boy with a dog on the other (this fascinated my 7 month old), a set of three gears that baby can turn, a large ball within the panel that a small hand can spin, an imbedded rubber squeak toy baby can punch, and best of all, a large break-proof mirror to entrance your little one! We invited a toddling 9 month old to come play, but we were afraid she'd resent the enclosure, as she's used to full run of her better designed for children home. We had nothing to be concerned about. She seemed to accept the enclosure as a toy rather than a blockade, and never complained once!
Now that our crawler is trying to stand, we're patting ourselves on our backs for our smart purchase! The enclosure is just the right height for him to pull himself up to a standing position. For now it comes neck high on him, so no fear of flipping over the top or climbing over just yet. Because it's a continuous enclosure, he can hold onto the top edge and walk himself in circles inside the perimeter...great practice!
We haven't made much use of it's portability as yet, but it's pretty simple to take apart and put together, though it does take a bit of effort. You align the hook and pole, slide them together hook in groove style, then slide the hook down and into place. The manufacturers description mentions folding...it does no such thing. You must separate all the panels and align them on in front of the other, then slide the provided long plastic screws through a hole in each of the panels to keep them snug together. (the two plastic screws stay handy because they are housed in one of the panels all the time). This makes a neat 2 foot by 1 foot package (approx.) and is lightweight enough to make for easy carrying by the handle in the middle. Since we have two, obviously we make two neat packages.
This play area would be great for outdoors and the beach, other folks' homes when visiting more than a few hours, or, as we use it, as a childproofing system. We highly recommend one or two!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ceylona
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Location: Florida
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 8 members
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