Manhattan Toy Skwish Classic

We got one of these for our two-month old and she just loves it! You can't tell from the picture, but the black lines on the toy are STRETCHY! It's great for gripping and not too heavy (our two month old can hold it!)

It's worth every penny!!

We loved this toy. I was worried at first that it could be a choking hazard with the small beads and elastic string, but I figured Manhattan Toy is a respected company and they must have gone through rigorous testing first, right? However, last week my son was playing with this in the car and one of the wooden rods broke, causing the elastic to snap and a bead to fall off.

I wanted to give Manhattan Toy the benefit of the doubt maybe this is just a fluke somehow but they have failed to respond to both a call and an email. I am very disappointed, and do NOT recommend this toy for your baby. It just isn't safe.

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The other reviewers are right when they say this is perfect for little hands to hold and little mouths to nibble. When my son was playing with it a few weeks ago he suddenly started crying his "I'm hurt" cry. I couldn't find anything wrong with him so I just chalked it up to teething pain. Well, it just happened again and to my horror I noticed a drop of blood on his bib. This toy somehow gave him a cut on his lip, poor thing. Maybe it got caught between the elastic bands or between a band and one of the balls. I now realize that it must have hurt him the first time, too. Twice is two times too many, so this toy is going in the trash. It's a shame because he really liked it, until it hurt him.

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I thought it would be helpful to have a review of this toy from the perspective of somebody with a long history with it. My daughter, who is now 14 years old, had one of these as a baby. She liked playing with it then, and it is one of the few toys she kept well into her childhood. At first, babies use it more for a rattle or a teether. Then when they're toddlers, they use it more as a ball (bounce it, throw it, roll it, catch it) or a stress-relief toy (squish it, smush it). In later toddler years, they start to contemplate the 3-D complexity more and enjoy trying to make it flex and pull into different shapes as they stretch the elastic with stronger muscles.

While I admit it may not be as "exciting" as all the flashy, battery-operated, ADHD-inducing noisemakers that are on the market now, I believe this toy has a huge intrinsic value for letting a child contemplate shape, 3-D depth perception, color, movement, and cause and effect. I can't prove this, but I also think this toy might subconsciously plant seeds in a child's mind to help them understand atomic and molecular structure in the future (I'll let you know after my 14-year-old gets her first report card in Chemistry in a couple of years!) I just think the Skwish is the toy-equivalent of playing classical music to your baby. Your child most likely will not sit down and play with it for hours at a time, but in the few minutes s/he does spend with it, you will see the little gears turning in her mind.

I'm thrilled to see that this toy is still around, because I want to get one for my new daughter (9 mos old)! What I cannot attest to is the CURRENT quality of these toys. 14 years ago, it was EXCELLENT. If they have cheapened it up over the years, then that might be a problem.

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I bought this for my nephew that was coming to visit from Germany. He is 13 months old and loved it (since it is labeled for 0-12 months). It was perfect for the plane ride (9 hour ride) since it is light weight can be "skwished" with out breaking it, and it doesn't make much noise (it only makes noise when the wood pieces slide on the ropes and hit each other). This is the kind of toy that can be bought for a much younger (3 months or so)child and it will grow with them. I would absolutely recommend this toy for car rides, plane trips or just playing around the house.

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