Review: Fisher Price Croc Tunnel

Now, normally I am a big fan of the old Fisher Price brand, however I seem to have found the exception to the rule. It’s the Fisher Price Croc Tunnel which usually retails for around $50 here in Australia though you can find it on sale from around $20. I bought it for $19 and yet still it was not worth the money.

The Croc Tunnel looks lovely and stable in images though when you get it home and set up the tunnel has not hard brackets on the floor section so the material gets caught up under little knees and more often than not ends up flipping over.

It is designed for babies for are strong enough to lift their legs up when they crawl and yet small enough to not want to go sideways, touch anything around them, be interested in the walls at all, move in any direction fast or weight more than air.

Basically if your baby doesn’t end up on their head or arse in the first ten minutes, your doing well. For us and many others from what I have seen, The Croc Tunnel often ends up in tears… and on ebay.

Review: Jolly Jumper All The Cool Kids Are Doing It

Like most things, Jolly Jumper is just something that you can never picture your first tiny baby being big enough to use. Sure enough, there will come a time when they are big enough and when this day comes, go and spend you $60 on the jumper along with $30 on the musical mat and don’t question it, just have faith.

I write this to you all now while hearing my own baby cackling away in the lounge room, strapped into her jumper and setting off all the musical spots on her mat time after time finding it no less amusing the 200th time.

A slight warning, the mat is adult proof. What does this mean? It means that like most things, we as parents will rush home and pull our baby purchases out of the packaging eager to try them out.. Not by strapping in baby, but by trying them out ourselves. I am sure that I was not in the minority when I got home and tapped the Jolly Jumper mat with my hand and thought.. well, this is shit. However, I persisted and the next time I hooked up baby it turns out that the 3 sensors the mat has in fact has her playing music a lot of them time, and are perfectly positioned to keep her occupied for a long time.

Who would have thunk it? They knew better than I did…

Give baby a few goes to learn how to use her Jolly Jumper, even help them by pulling the spring and helping them jump, soon enough she’ll get the hang of it, (and after twice that amount of time you will get the hang of strapping her into it) but it will be one of the best non Fisher Price investments you will come across.

Let the jumping begin.

Review: Fisher Price Waterfall Soother

Looks good doesn’t it? I hate to say it, but yet another excellent thing from Fisher Price that once again, both baby and I love. Three different volumes, three different settings, music, lights, sounds and everything all at once. It’s fantastic.

This one is perfect for keeping baby occupied during quiet time and often jsut the ticket to send them off to dream land. My husband has dubbed it Baby TV because hse gets glued to it sometimes.

The only problem? I want two of them.  One for the cot and another for the lounge room when she is sitting in her swing or bouncer. Our girl is a big fan, and that means so am I.

I need to buy shares in Fisher-Price. This thing so far has no downfalls. I’m in love with it.

Review: Preen – Gets out the poop.

As a parent there are only a few items that you would really be in trouble with out. Something to feed them with and something to clean them with.

Regular laundry for babies is rather easy, there isn’t any food to worry about, mostly just spit up milk. That means no mushed peas smooshed into the arm pits, no coloured juice stains down the front, no glue or finger paint down the shorts and no handful of pet snails (gathered from the garden and stored in the pocket) that were once alive either. The problem that you do have at this age, is…

… (insert jaws theme here)… Poop.

I don’t know about baby boys but I do know about baby girls and if they are laying down it goes backwards and if they are sitting up it goes frontwards. If it didn’t manage to seep upward into the nice outfit you spent 20 minutes trying to get their tiny hands into there is still time. You take off their nappy and it is like they are desperately trying to stamp their feet in it and then wipe them all over you and themselves. As well as finding it hilarious while you try and block their every move.

At some point along the way, be it during, after or as part of the clean up, there will be poo on someones clothes and as a nod to your new schedule of 3-times-a-day laundry your gonna have to get it out sooner rather than later.

My suggestion to you is Preen. A few sprays of this with a roll in the washing machine hay and your baby clothes will look good as new instead of looking ‘was once poo’d in’ like some other stain removers leave them. It’s so easy that all you dads can even do it, hell, my husband discovered it.

I’m finding that now she knows I can get poop out easily, Lily doesn’t get so much joy out of trying to cover both of us in it anymore. But throwing up on me, now that’s always gonna be funny.

Review: Fisher-Price Bouncer Cover ‘n Play

It’s simple, it’s cheap, and yes, once again, it’s Fisher Price. There is no way to get away form these people because they just make the best stuff.

It is probably the simplist of the bouncer range from Fisher-Price. The rest are filled with gizmos and gadgets, sounds and lights. All of that sounds great but after you spend the extra hundred bucks on it, you’ll find your left with nothing more than the cliche mastercard ad where the baby plays more with the packaging than the high tech toys.

A seat, a blanket, a bit of vibration and a three-toy-activity bar is all it takes to keep your baby happy, and if yours is anything like ours, keep them talking, laughing and smiling too. The activity bar consists of a cute tiger/cat, a slightly stoned looking birdie and a blue puppy that rattle a bit when knocked or bounced. Admittedly, it’s not quite Melrose Place entertainment for me, but, Baby seems to be a big fan.

Buy one now. That is all.

Review: Fisher-Price Rainforest Swing

Or…. as I like to think of it, the quiet chair. Yes, they are expensive. Yes, you need to find yet another place to put them. Yes they are big, but, if you are like me, and enjoy your baby’s.. quieter times with the added bonus of watching them smile, you’re insane if you don’t have a swing.

This one is the Fisher Price Rainforest swing. While I was pregnant, I wanted the Papasan Fisher Price swing because it would have fitted in with my living room decor with it’s neutral colours.. Silly me, I somehow thought I would avoid the bomb site of baby gear enough to worry about my pre-baby decor?.. Now I see the light, or better yet, the colourful rotation of toucans.. And yes I am told they are a real bird, I have my doubts.

Our baby girl could sit in this thing for at least half an hour just watching the mobile and the world around her while she swings; even longer if she starts to fall asleep. If the timer turns off the mobile and the music though, look out, because sometimes it’s the only thing holding her smiley-faced good mood together until it turns off and she explodes like crazed banshee. Often a state she won’t recover from.

There are tons of different ones out there but this one works for us, the swing changes direction from a side to side movement to a front to back one and has at least two non-retarded sounding music options that are simple rain or forest sounds. Excellent for those occasional suicidal moments of if-I-hear-pop-goes-the-weasel-one-more-time hell..

This one is available in Australia for about $250 – $220 depending on where you go.. If you notice, I range pricing going downwards to satisfy the optimist in me, which now that I have had a child, is soon to be squashed like a bug in the baby retail world, so let me have my last moments.

So, if you value your sanity and lack of Menendez style rampages, nurture it and get the quiet chair.

Review: Fisher-Price Rainforest Mobile

This is our first Must-Have product, and trust us, it’s fabulous. It seems far too expensive when you’re in the market for a mobile, but in our experience, if you’re in the market for a play toy, sleep aid, calming tool AND mobile, it’s just the ticket.

It moves and plays music (four to choose from) as well as two levels of volume. Best of all, it has a remote that you can use from any line-of-sight to turn it back on when your little one gets restless. After the 18 minutes of playing time and she won’t even know that you’re there!

The unit attaches to your cot or crib in a rather specific way, there is not much room for adjustment. Although it says not to add any extra straps to attach it, I had to use some ribbon to make sure it was strongly fastened. The top-heavy design didn’t suit my cot, but I made it work anyway and it is magical. I was expecting an overrated music box and I got a wonderful accessory that keeps my girl happy when she is awake, asleep, sleepy or agitated. And the rainforest sounds on one setting are so calming they could even send me to sleep.

Here in Oz, it’s available for about $79.00 in most places and worth every cent.

But! it DOES go through batteries very fast, taking 4 D batteries. So, when you’re trying to get your little one to drift off to sleep, or they have sleepy eyes, make use of the ‘music only’ function and save the power of using the mobile when they aren’t going to see it anyway.

Review: Woolworths Select Nappies

After clearing out the supermarket of the Huggies nappies that were on sale for $28.00 a box.. (104 inside) Awesome. Josh and I saw the Woolworths Select brand on sale for $5.95 a box (54 inside) That was about $16.00 off. So, we thought, ‘hey, now is the time to give these a whirl’. All I can say is they would want to be even cheaper.

They didn’t work out for us at all. My daughter leaked through them three times in one day, wetting her clothes. I wouldn’t buy these again for more than something to wipe up with. Actually come to think of it, they are almost cheaper than a roll of paper towel. Maybe that’s the destiny of the other 50 still sitting in the box that I am otherwise never going to use.

So, after all, Huggies it is. They are not that much more expensive, in fact, doing the maths, they are almost the same being about 40 bucks for 100. But Huggies are so much better quality. If you’re tempted to try them, wait till they are on sale, that way you won’t feel guilty about not using the remainder of them as more than a tea towel.

Review: Heinz Baby Basics Pacifier

When you finally decide that you can’t deal with the screaming any longer and you will give a dummy/ soother/ pacifier a whirl, sometimes, you find they just don’t want to know about it! A lot of the dummies we have tried seem to be the same, and equally disappointing to my little girl, but this one seems to have taken her fancy on those late and dark I-just-want-to-suck-something nights. It’s the Heinz Baby Basics pacifier and the only reason I have one is because it was left over from a baby shower game. It’s fantastic and works almost every time when I desperately need it too. It has a funny new shape to it that is almost angled flat on the bottom.

To be honest I have no idea what the magic is, but it works for us. From what I can see they can be a little expensive, but worth it if you’re struggling for some sanity. So if you are trying to find something that might just work when nothing else seems to, give this one a go.