Archive for the Category 'Toddler'

The Fisher Price Learning Home

Sunday, February 01st, 2009

In a sea of many useless, overly loud, overly intense (and sometimes overly boring) “activity centers”, one is lucky to find this gem: the Fisher Price Learning Home.

The good:

  • Lots of activities: You can open and close the door, ring the doorbell, open and close the window, turn on/off the radio (great music - see below), adjust the address, and more. Your child will use almost all of these with glee, but I’m betting that, for most people, the door will be the “kitchen” (heart) of this home.
  • It’s easy to move around and position: The “house” is really a front wall, but that’s more than enough for your little one. As a front wall, one can easily position themselves outside or inside of the house. And it looks fine just about anywhere, but since it’s likely to be a keeper, you’ll probably enjoy it in the center of your rec room (or whatever space is your baby/toddler’s domain).
  • Great music: One of the few toys we have owned where the parents can actually enjoy the music, too. There are many tunes on this guy, some with singing, some without, running the gamut of styles. I found myself requesting certain songs from time to time, that’s how catchy they were. And it’s not too loud (has a reasonable hi/lo setting to keep you sane).
  • Entertaining as your little one grows: As your child gets older, he/she will find different things interesting. The music is a consistent draw, but the various activities get more or less attention as the child grows. It’s a nice balance!
  • Reliable: Our son never really got tired of this home. We ended up loaning it out to friends with their own new bundle of joy because we wanted others to enjoy it too. Our son mostly forgot about it (out of sight, out of mind…) but was happy when we visited those friends and he saw his old, familiar play home.

As far as cons, hard to find. If push came to shove, I guess I might complain a tiny bit about the sensitivity of the door. As you know, babies and toddlers are not the most delicate of handlers and they can easily move things back and forth in rapid succession. The end result can be the repeating start/stop of the same song (you’d think they’d just let it finish after 5 back and forths in less than 5 seconds or something!). But that’s really reaching…

Seriously, this was one of the best investments we made and we recommend it wholeheartedly!

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Baby, Toddler | Comments (0)

Free toddler music at You Tube

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

Do you have a toddler that loves to dance? Do you not want to order each and every song he/she likes and compile your own custom mix of songs? Do you like to experiment and find new artists? Look no further, we have a recommendation for you about how to make good use of YouTube for your child’s entertainment.

The idea is simple:

    1. Create a YouTube account
    2. Search for songs that your baby/todder likes (Alphabet Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old MacDonald, etc)
    3. You find several versions; try them out yourself to see which is the best fit for you and your toddler.
    4. Add them to your playlist
    5. When your toddler wants to dance, login and, when viewing your playlist, select “Play All”
    6. When the first video starts playing, make the display full screen (there’s an icon on the bottom right part of the player that allows this) and let the fun begin

Unfortunately, playback isn’t always flawless in YouTube (sometimes playback just stops after a song or sometimes YouTube can’t seem to locate one of the videos, even though it comes back later), but that’s minor noise we’re willing to live with.

Here’s some of our favorites:

Give it a spin and let us know what you think. Tell us your experiences too!

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Acitivities, Baby, Toddler | Comments (0)

Meet the… DVDs

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Our son really enjoyed the “Meet the…” series from Preschool Prep. A friend of ours recommended the series and, being curious, we ordered a couple just to check it out.

First, about our TV watching policies, so that you know where we’re coming from. Like many parents, we try to minimize the amount of DVD/TV-watching time in our house. We didn’t quite go to the extreme of no TV watching until 2, but we did try to keep it to as little as possible (hopefully no more than 2-3 hours per week). If our son did watch TV, it was either in the form of a little Sesame Street (he liked Elmo) or DVDs like these. Many days he watched no TV. Some days he watched more than usual (for example, if we went a long-ish car trip).

Each of the DVDs takes a simple approach to introducing the child to a series of concepts (e.g., shapes, colors, the alphabet). Typically, each item in the set of objects associated with the concept is introduced and then linked to a particular character and musical score. The name of that item is repeated several times, with different intonations, and the character used to represent the concept is often show performing some simple task (e.g., a green square will be show mixing chemicals in a lab, a blue circle will be skateboarding around town, etc).

In watching these, here was our take:

PROs:

  • Simple concept - easy to watch
  • Great musical score - easy to listen to
  • Stresses phonetic variations
  • Colorful, smooth animation
  • Obviously made with care (you get the feeling a small core group of people are involved)
  • Repeats sequences of related concepts (good logical flow)
  • Calm; not over the top
  • Can be purchased with a book (per DVD) - our son actually loved these!

CONs:

  • Repetition of concept might be annoying (at first) to adult (but we guarantee that the music will win you over)

Overall, these DVDs were a smash hit. I recommend starting with “Meet the Shapes” and/or “Meet the Colors” before tackling “Meet the Letters” or “Meet the Sight Words”. You’ll get a feel for how much YOU like these DVDs by starting off simple and holding back on ordering the whole set.

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Educational, Baby, Toddler | Comments (0)

CPSIA effective start date is Feb 10th

Thursday, January 08th, 2009

On February 10th, an important new law will go into effect that has lots of implications for the production and purchase of products for children (under 12). Due to recent problems in lead poisoning from Chinese made products, the U.S. passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which will be implemented starting on February 10th. What this means is that any product sold for children under 12 needs to be tested for lead and phthalates. So even if an entreprenurial mom wants to make and sell socks for toddlers, she will need to get them tested for toxicity - which is not only a hassle, it will cost several hundred dollars (at least).

Obviously, the intention of this act (protect children from evil substances in products sold to them) is good, but the implications are rough for small businesses and possibly quite worse for consumers, who will presumably have less choices in the marketplace (albeit safer ones). This is legislation that is obviously good spirited, but needs some important refinements. Also, it’s another reminder that it only takes one bad offender (China) to ruin life for the rest of ~99% well-meaning enterprises.

If you have strong feelings FOR or AGAINST this legislation, make sure you make your voice heard to your local congressional reps.

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Government, Toys, Baby, Toddler | Comments (2)

Automoblox cars

Sunday, January 04th, 2009


If you have a toddler or youngster that is really into cars, we suggest you check out the Automoblox line of cars.

These things represent the culmination of a nice little story - a young college student designs a wooden car for a school project. Student goes to work for Fortune 100 company, learns about product development. Student becomes entreprenuer and the Automoblox company is launched. The first (project) car was made up of a a few blocks that were attached together via wooden dowels. The idea was to combine high quality wooden blocks that could be attached together with a concept all kids love - the toy car. It’s a great idea and the secret is in the care with which the idea was executed. Automobox has now acquired a long line of good reviews and loyal customers.

My wife and I bought a couple of these cars from Amazon when our son was just about two. He was a bit young for them then, but he since has really grown into them. He loves taking them apart and putting them back together. Of course, he loves racing them even more. And we’re happy the folks at Automobox took the time to design them with care - for example, the rubber “tires” not only make the car move fast along our wood floors, they also don’t damage the floors. Can’t argue with that combination.

The cars are very sturdy, just as everyone says and there aren’t any sharp edges. If you have very small children, who like to put everything in their mouths, you might want to watch out a bit for the plastic people, but given their size, it’s a minor concern. BTW, the people are kind of fun - they each have different shapes and fit into the car a different way. One minor complexity with some of the cars is that you have to make sure the people are facing forwards in order for everything to come together nicely. But our 2-3 year old grew into that and we saw it as a nice learning opportunity.

As far as the differences between the cars, I think that’s really only of importance if you have an older young child playing with them (i.e., K through 2nd grade or something). Toddlers don’t really appreciate the differences and in fact they are more likely to be interested in the slightly larger cars. What’s fun about buying at least two is that you can mix and match some of the pieces and create totally new cars. Kind of like Legos, with less pieces, less freedom, but more practicality for the younger child.

Check them out online and read the reviews over at Amazon for more info.

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Toys, Toddler | Comments (1)

The wonders of a beach ball

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

Like to play kick the ball with your toddler? Want to make it fun for him or her as well? Then a beach ball may be the answer. We happened to have one lying around at home and one day our son started to kick it around. Although our house is not that big, it does have high ceilings, and a beach ball feels right at home in the family area we have.

For the toddler, a beach ball provides some key benefits:

    1. It’s big, so it’s hard to miss when they kick it (eliminates frustration when kids are first starting out)
    2. It’s usually too soft to break anything, and
    3. Because it’s so light, toddlers can kick it quite far or high, which they enjoy immensely.

Actually, with regards to (3), it’s interesting to note that your toddler doesn’t have to have that much umph in his kick to kick it roughly as far as you can. Even though you have a lot of power in your legs (compared to your little one, at least), kicking a beach ball hard sort of reminds you of the law of diminishing returns. In short, you won’t be able to kick it that far. And once your toddler sees that he or she can kick it roughly just as far as you can, it very well adds to their interest, in their desire to emulate you. At least, that is what we found.

You have to be a little careful - watch out for anything that’s somewhat top heavy and can be knocked over, and/or fill it up with a bit less air - but it’s a lot of fun. Our son started playing with it when he was old enough to walk reasonably well. You can’t beat the price (usually under $5), it’s a great indoor physical activity, and the smiles you get from the little one are obviously worth it!

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Toys, Toddler | Comments (3)

A little help from the feds

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

Here’s a couple of useful sites maintained by the US government.

There’s some good stuff buried in here such as the safety checklists and the caregiver checks. The CPSC also has a good feed from which to monitor product recalls.

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Toys, Baby, Toddler | Comments (0)

Welcome!

Friday, December 26th, 2008

Welcome to our site! This blog is an attempt to talk about parenting ideas - products, resources, and strategies - that aid in child raising.

As first time parents, my wife and I often found ourselves searching online for suggestions and recommendations on strategies with various topics or good parenting aids. Sometimes we were looking on suggestions on how to get our son to sleep through the night. Other times we wanted to find a good story book that others recommended. Still other times we were looking for suggestions on what to look for in a preschool. In all cases, what we were hoping for was to find were sites that would offer unbiased input on possibly useful parenting resources, be it for purposes of learning, play, or general growth and advancement.

As we said, our site focuses on “parenting ideas” - these will range from great books & toys, to social and academic growth, to general life with baby and toddler. Sometimes we’ll touch on more serious issues, but only lightly (we’re sure you’ve gotten an earful of advice from family and books - you don’t need us to help with that!). Also, you’ll notice that we will tend to focus on highlighting the good (i.e., solutions that work) and less time harping on the bad. We just think it’s more helpful to concentrate on the positive.

Having said all this, we would be remiss in not saying there are many more important/fundamental things about parenting that go way beyond what we will talk about here. For example, anything we say here is almost infinitely dwarfed by the need to be a loving, patient, understanding parent. These are the truly important things; but hopefully you already know that no blog will help you with that. Our goal is to stick to the lighter side - the products, strategies, resources that can aid in child raising.

With that all said, onward we go!

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Baby, Toddler, Other | Comments (0)