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If they're not ready just yet to walk or ride, they can play with the gizmos located front and back. Normally I'm not in favor of the giant plastic accessories that are supposed to help babies progress through their natural baby cycles, but I definitely recommend this one just for the fun value. Where Fisher Price has completely missed the mark in the last 10 years with ugly characters and garish, obnoxiously noisy toys, Playskool has picked up the slack. My daughter really enjoys the gadgety things and walking 'by herself.' We have hardwood floors and because of the wheel design - not very sophisticated being all plastic parts - there is enough friction that they don't go so fast as to roll right out from under her. Oh, and for the aching back that comes with toddling toddlers. This car/walker is really cool. It's colorful and offers something for various baby stages.
I have never seen a baby go so crazy for a toy. It goes together easily and holds up very well - plastic is rain-proof. One baby took to it IMMEDIATELY. She would just zip around the first floor of our house happy as can be.
I remembered my son had a Radio Flyer walker wagon as a baby and wondered if that had helped. I think there really is something to this helping them polish up that walking skill. A friend of mine has a much busier FP walker and the babies get distracted by the toys, don't even use it as a walker. Now, much to my annoyance, he keeps turning this back into a car and riding around on it - and he's one of those absurdly tall 5 year olds so he's more like a 7 year old. They didn't.
yeah, some day).So I bought one of these. It's great exercise for her, too. We still have it, but it needs some serious elbow grease to be used again (it got left in the rain. I have 3 kids - a 5 1/2 year old boy and twin 15 month old girls.
Whether that was coincidence or if this gave her the push she needed, I don't know. Even now that she is walking on her own she still loves zipping around behind this. We actually briefly had one of these when my son was a baby because I wanted the ride-on car - but he was too tall by the time we got it, or so I thought. I do know she loves this toy, though. :-)
I sort of expected my girls to do everything at the same time my son had done things, which would have meant walking at 12 months. It seemed like they were in the "tentative steps" stage forever without getting on to actually walking. I am not sure what I think of the ride-on feature of this yet. Overall I highly recommend this. My other baby didn't care for it as much - she was the better walker when I first got this, and now her sister has passed her up big time.
I tried pushing down on the handle bar to raise the front wheel and this thing will not tip. Not all kids will love it but for the price it's great to try. My babies aren't at the ride-on stage yet, though. But it's sturdy, too - there is a hump in the floor to get into our kitchen and she always gets stuck at this hump.
So even though as a ride on toy this looks super tiny and useless - maybe kids can make do. One baby was doing better than the other and had been stuck in this stage longer. Gives them confidence and so on.The activities on the toy aren't too entertaining which is actually a good thing. I know someone else complained of tippiness but ours does not tip, not even when you want it to.After a few weeks of this my baby is walking all over the place.
now it's in pieces, I thought I would refinish it some day. It's great that it is light weight so that even though the wheels are not able to swivel, the baby can sort of "float" the whole thing to make turns.
In our apartment, which has berber carpet, he walked behind it without any slippage or imbalance of the toy. Conversion between walker and ride-on is easy, but be sure to listen for the 'click' of the lock. He enjoyed putting things in the small storage compartment, spinning the flap-spinner, and shifting the 'gear lever'. This may be because of its simple design. We received this toy as a gift just when my son was just about the right age.
My only irritation with this toy is the color. But it helps). In walker mode, the toy does not flex -- it seems sturdy. (I'm sure that there are plenty of other factors. It seems like the toy has had a good life, and I do not yet see the time when we'd give it away.The toy is light, which makes it easy to carry (if the need arises). I believe (but without proof) that this toy does encourage walking and did help my son learn to walk while having fun. In ride-on mode, he now adds his imagination and says that he's driving a race-car or even a truck. It's also OK on pavement, but I advise adult supervision.
As he was starting to learn how to walk, he took to the toy eagerly. I recommend this toy if you have carpeted areas to use it on. Ugh. At Grampa's/Grandma's, where the floor is bare wood, the wheels did slip, and he did fall a few times.Now my son is well into his toddlerhood, and he still plays with it with regularity. It may seem that its light weight would mean that it's flimsy, but it has survived one year of good use with no breakage.
Even when he was first learning to walk, he didn't find it helpful. He plays with it for 30 seconds or so and then gets bored. It really just takes up more space than it's worth. We have had this toy for a while, we got it when my son was about 9 months old, now he's 16 months. I think he has played with it for a total of 15 minutes in all that time.
The kids do like the spinner on the back, though. My daughter got hurt a couple of times, and I threw it out. I admit, our version of this toy is a couple of years old, but as far as I can tell, it hasn't changed. The wheels don't turn well, and in walker mode, it tips over VERY easily.
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