Stacking Rings and Rattles

I had planned on getting the usual stacking ring toy for my baby. I saw this one and thought I'd give it a try. My little guy loved it. The rattling makes it lots of fun. The only down side is that the rings are pretty chunky and it was hard for him to differentiate the graduating sizes so they were very rarely put on properly. In addition the pole you put them on doesn't slope like the usual stacker so it doesn't help in learning to go from big to littlest. But we liked it none-the-less.

Aqua Leisure Convertible Sunshade Baby Float

Ours started to leak air only after 2 uses. The canopy is a little flimsy but sort of works. The good part is that the wheel is tall and sturdy so the baby feels safe in it. If it wasn't for for leak would continue to use it. Overall it's an "ok" product.

We really liked this float and used it on a trip to Destin, Fl. And for the rest of the summer at home. It is a good float and the shade was pretty good. The only issue is be sure the kids legs aren't too chunky for the holes (the holes are large, but we used it the next summer and she still fit and it held her up, but her legs had become a bit chubby and even though they fit in the holes it left a little red mark from her kicking and moving but if you are getting it for a kid in the recommended age and weight range with average sized thighs it should be fine! Our daughter just has thicker thighs.)

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House Of Marbles Push Along Pig

My granddaughter, age 21 months, loves this toy. It is easy for her to push or pull. The details are cute, the quality is excellent, and the clicking of the wooden disks is fun for her and not too loud for adults.

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Maison Chic Rattle

My now 5 month old daughter loves this toothy guy. The pointed fin and tail have been great for her to nom nom while chewing, the fabric is nubby and soft. I throw him in the washing machine when he is swimming in drool. Makes a nice change from the Monkey/Bunny stuff.

Cute, soft and just darling! Perfect rattle for when baby boy is born! Cannot wait for him to use it! :)

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North American Bear Company Smushy Bunny Cozy

We have bought 2 of these bunnies. My son sleeps with his "Bun Bun" every night. It's not very big perfect for little hands. He holds it and sucks his thumb. So cute!! I wash it in the machine but put it in the dryer for a few seconds then line dry it! Doesn't take long for it to dry just a few hrs.. Love it!

We ordered this also for our youngest grandson. His momma said he really loves it! Soft and cuddly and just the right size for our lil guy!

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VTech - Winnie The Pooh - Sort 'n Learn Cart

When this toy arrived I was really surprised with its size. Its a pushable cart so I imagined it large enough for a toddler to stand and push but this cart is only about 6 ins. tall. A baby could push and pull while sitting but my son has to bend over to push it.

The box also says age is 12 months 36 months, not 6 months 2 years like stated here on Amazon.

That all being said. . . my son does like this toy and its very educational. We still like the toy, I was just diappointed with the size.

This toy is not what I expected.

1. I was surprised by the size of this cart. It's only 6 inches high. Given the fact that this toy is made for children who are toddling/walking (ages 1 3) and that it is in fact called a "push cart" I assumed it would be a cart that my daughter could push around. In actuality, it is a smallish sized puzzle on wheels.

2. The shapes themselves are plain plastic pieces (no rattling, crinkling or textures) and my daughter lost interest in them quickly. Also, they have a sticker label. Given the age group, I think you're asking for some grungy looking shapes since they are more than likely going to be drooled and chewed upon.

3. This is more of a puzzle than a sorter, since the shapes don't go through the cart.

4. It's small but it's bulky and hard to store. If I throw it in the toy chest, the shapes fall out and get lost.

If you are looking for a shape sorter, there are others available that are more rewarding for toddlers.

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I carefully read the product details and the other reviews and knew buyig it that it was a small toy. I bought it for that very reason in that it would be easier to use. My niece was easily able to push the toy and had countless hours of fun working with the shapes. Her mom said she loves to dance to the music too. It is very durable and will easily be able to be passed on to others when she is done with it. This toy was an all around hit.

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like what the others have said, it's for ages 12-24 or 36 mos., not 6-24 or 36 as amazon has advertised. hence, my baby just puts the shapes into his mouth or smashes them on the cart or on his other toys, so i decided (to keep him from ruining the toy before he could appreciate it) to keep the toy in his toy box (where the shapes have scattered elsewhere since they don't stay in place) until he's ready for it.

above was my review when we first got the toy. however, somewhere between his 18th month & 24th month, i think, this became his favorite toy, & he would cry hysterically everytime we left home without it. he had to bring it with him even if he was just on a stroller.

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This is a very good buy. The toy entertains, plays music, encourages shape sorting and can be pushed with the handle. Our child loves to dance to the music and it encourages them to keep trying to get the shapes in the correct spot. It also has a spinning wheel that children just love to spin as fast as they can. It is very durable and the batteries last a long time. There are different settings too so they don't get bored.

Sturdiblock Set by Children's Factory

Both my 4 year old and my 1 year old love these blocks...they stack them, climb on them, build with them, jump on them. They seem to be taking the beating quite nicely. Good quality. Take some space to store. But all in all we really like them.

I got these blocks for my nephew a few years ago he was probably about a year old. He and my niece, now 5 and 3 years old, still love playing with them! The blocks are about 4 years old now and still look like new, despite being played with hard! They are such a great hit, I am now buying another set for my son's first birthday. Highly recommend!

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My son has much fun with this set of seven blocks! Stack them up, knock them down, rumble on top of them..very fun for my little guy! I add them to his other Children's Factory items and the blocks hold up well and blend right in. Very bright colors are great when teaching young children primary colors. Definitely worth the money paid for them.

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My 3 year old likes to stack these and knock them over. He also likes to tell me the different colors of the blocks. These blocks are very durable and can be sat on. They do tend to be a bit hard though, which is bad if your son throws things like mine does.

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Hape Counting Stacker

Overall this toy is very cute. The first concern I had when ordering it online was that if my son fell on the toy he might hurt himself, but the wooden stackers are held to the bottom wooden piece by an elastic piece so they bend when pressure is put on them. So if a kid was to fall on the toy they would bend down and not poke them. That being said, my son who just turned two has a hard time stacking these, lining up the small whole with the wooden piece is hard, he does get frustrated at times.

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Juno Baby - Juno's Rhythm Adventure

I knew this DVD was a hit as soon as I put it in and saw my 10-month old daughter sitting very still, watching the TV with a big smile on her face. She watched the video from beginning to end, and now every time I play it she recognizes the catchy music.

I like Juno Baby the best because it of its simplicity and clarity. Juno and friends are little puppets, and it seems homemade in feel while having a high production value, and is layered with some very nice classical music that is soothing yet still light and fun. Its a really exceptional character to mix up when you get a little too much Sid, Curious George, and all the rest.

I ordered this for my 16 month old niece. She absolutely loves it. The music is lively and entertaining, and she is very animated listening to it. This is a great way to instill a love of music in children at an early age.

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My 2 y/o daughter and 6mo son totally love Juno Baby. My daughter has started to sing along with the songs and has learned some basic spanish and french for words like 'House' and 'Moon' from the flashcards. My son laughs and sits there with his sister as they both watch and I can relax for 30 mins or so and not feel bad putting them in front of the TV. Highly recommend!

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"Juno Baby -Juno's Rhythm Adventure" is a wonderful DVD for toddlers, one that will engage them with charming puppetry vignettes, while also introducing them in a very basic way to music, counting and various languages, such as French, Spanish and (of course) English... but that's from an adult perspective. From a toddler's perspective, my 4 youngest nieces and nephews (ranging from ages one to three) have been playing this DVD ad nauseam since I gave it to them weeks ago... and that speaks louder than any review I can come up with. Highly recommended.

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My rating is mainly based on my child's interest in the video he really didn't like it nor was he drawn to it.

My 3yo is our 3rd child, so we've seen everything from Baby Einsten and Baby So Smart to Blues Clues, Caillou, Max and Ruby, Dora, Barney, the Wiggles, and so on. I've watched more than my fair share of annoying voices (Ruby & Caillou). I really found the voices of the characters as bad or worse. I felt that other than Juno, they just didn't have much personality that would draw children to like them. My 3yo seems to agree. He loves to sing and dance, but really had no interest in this one.

As for the music, I give it credit for being original, and I appreciate original characters, animation, etc. Baby Einstein relied too much on simple videos of toys and things, but at least the music was better. I just didn't find the music composition all that great to listen to. Certainly not on par with classical composers, in my opinion.

The puppetry and animation, as well as story line, just wasn't on-par with a Blues-Clues or Dora. There wasn't a whole lot of repetition for kids to latch on to, the character shots were usually too wide for small children to be able to focus in on who's speaking, and overall the characters get lost in the busy backgrounds. Sometimes simpler is better especially for younger children.

This left me feeling like it was a mashup of elements of all these popular shows, but that they just couldn't pull it off effectively. All in all, it's probably no more annoying or worse than any other kid's show us adults usually have to build up a tolerance to be able to shut them out even when our kids love them. So while many kids might find this series enjoyable, mine just didn't.

Lastly, the case isn't a typcial DVD shell. It's more like a cardboard book. The ring that the dvd snaps onto is a solid piece of plastic. With no cutouts, you can't push on the center to pop out the dvd. Instead you have to bend the disc until it pops off. Over time, I could see either the disc suffering damage, or the plastic nub of the case will get worn down and no longer hold the disc.

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Kushies Zolo Boa

I admit it. Like many of the Zolo toys, I initially purchased this for me than my 6 month old because their design appeals to me. And like many of the other Zolo toys, they appeal to my daughter even more. She loves the surprise of the sounds that each ring has (cow, pig, frog, bird and the best sound is the laughing head). And the different fabric textures and fringe on each of the rings makes for hours of exploration.

This stacker has nice textures but the sounds can only be activated by an adult. There is only one spot on each ring that make a sound. One is a bird and one is a frog didn't know those fell into the barnyard animal sounds! My grandson hasn't found it very amusing at all. Definately not worth the almost $40 price tag.

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My son received this as a present at about 6 months. This product has great sounds, a bird chirping, moo, ribbet, oink and child laughing.

The colors and textures are different on each ring. There's fringe and ribbon tags which my son loves to play with. He chews on most of the rings. His favorite is the black and white velour ring that moos. It's 3 months later and he still likes to play with the item except now he really likes the child laughing. He still can't stack the rings so hopefully he will have continued interest until he masters that task.

A friend came over for a playdate and liked the item so much she bought one too.

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What do you do when the batteries run out? Nothing. These are SO CUTE but SO OVERPRICED!!

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My daughter LOVES this toy... it was great when she was first learning to sit. I would sit her down and put the toy right between her legs, she would grab onto it and it gave her something to focus on and keep her balance. It has all kinds of different textures, colors and sounds. If you press down on the whole thing, it sounds like you are in a barnyard! Now that she can sit on her own, she knocks over the whole thing and will swing around the center pole like a hammer, she chews on the rings and the nose of the face on top... she doesn't put it back together yet, but she's only 7 months old... we'll get there!

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MP3 Player Teddy bear

UPDATE 2/10/2013: After less than a month of use, the track forward button started to fail. Now, after about 6 weeks of use, it completely failed and the track back and play/stop buttons are also starting to fail. This has rendered the bear almost useless for music playing and is now just another stuffed animal to add to my son's collection--a very expensive one at that. Unfortunately, this is just outside of Amazon's return period. The manufacturer mentions no warranty on their website and have not responded to my email inquiry.

Downgraded from 4 stars to 1.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

I purchased this for Christmas for my 3-year-old. I was looking for a simple, but durable MP3 player/speaker combo and didn't even fathom something like this exists. I'm grateful I stumbled upon it while browsing through Amazon. It is very soft and cuddly. This is his favorite gift.

The bear is very easy to use--I imagine a child at least as young as 2 could figure it out. On the feet are soft, felt buttons for volume, track forward/back, and play/stop. There is a red LED inside the bear's chest that beats like a heart when it is on. It will turn itself off after about 10 seconds of inactivity. The MP3 player is preloaded with 5 lullabies.

It seems very safe as well. The MP3 play is embedded inside the bear, in an unopenable, non-removable plastic pod. The bear has a fairly innocuous velcro slit in the seam of its back to access the pod, where there is a short USB cable and an on/off switch (in case you want to totally disable the bear)--that's it.

My only major complaint is that no instructions come with the bear except reference to the manufacturer's website, which is fairly primitive, buggy and is not helpful at all. It just gives you the ability to purchase a custom soundtrack and upload your own MP3's to be programmed into the bear, but for $20. This is not necessary, but it took me days to figure out how to load music correctly myself. When plugging the bear into the computer's USB port, it appears as a memory drive, where you can drag and drop files. Seems simple enough. However, after much head scratching, trial and error, I figured out that each MP3 file name must begin with a number (i.e. 01, 02, 03, etc.) and the bear will play the files in that order. If the files are unnumbered, they will not play. If there are multiples of the same number, only one of the tracks with that number will play. Additionally, the files must be MP3's. Tracks pulled directly from a CD (MP4) and most from iTunes (various file types) will not work. I downloaded some freeware (Music Disc Creator) to convert MP4's to MP3 and now we're good to go.

Some of the complaints on other reviews are no longer valid. The volume has persistence, meaning it stays at the volume last used when turned on. Also, there are no replaceable batteries--it is charged through the USB port (or you can get a USB plug adaptor to plug it into a wall outlet). It lasts quite a while on a full charge--at least 20 hours of play time, I'm guessing. It still does not remember the last track played--it always starts at track 01 when turned on--but the little one figured out very quickly how to skip to the songs he wants to hear.

Overall, this is a great buy.

I purchased this CuddleTunes bear in Jan of 2012, so I've been able to see the pros and cons of its features.

Pros:

The internal storage holds a LOT of music/audio plenty for a young child to fall asleep to, and lots of room for loved ones to record stories/audio on

The ability to download audio recordings from loved ones in a far-off location is a bonus

The bear is pretty "cuddly" at least according to our daughter's preference of stuffed creatures :)

The battery life is pretty good, and it's easy to replace AA batteries (compared to those little circle batteries or more expensive C or D batteries sometimes used in little-kid products).

Cons:

The music volume defaults on the LOUDEST setting every time you turn it on. This can be an issue if you're trying to put your young one to sleep and forget that the volume will start cranked up. There is no way to change this default setting.

The music volume takes a long time to turn down as well you need to press the foot button many times (or press and hold for several seconds) before you start to hear the volume change.

There is no "lock" button for the player controls, so we don't like our child sleeping with it because she ends up either turning up the volume accidentally, or stopping the music altogether (which defeats the purpose of putting her to sleep with it). Because of this we usually turn the bear on, set the volume, and then place it outside of the crib for her to listen to. (I know I know, it's not as fun as cuddling with it.)

The upload feature is a little cumbersome because each time you want to upload some audio/music onto the bear, you need to unvelcro the back, plug the USB cord into it (and the computer) and then begin the upload process. This takes SEVERAL minutes each time. A better idea would be to incorporate a wi-fi feature into the bear that allows you to send music to it without messing with cords, velcro, and the time it takes to continue uploading new features.

No playlist feature which means if you have both music and audio books on the bear, there is no way to separate them by selecting audio or music. You have to scroll through the tracks until you find what you want. A playlist button (or something similar) would be a great feature to add as well.

Pink ribbon fell off after 4 months (not a big deal though).

Summary: For the $60 price tag, I find the features given a little lacking. I would love to see some of the suggested features listed above incorporated into this bear as technology certainly allows for it. I think they could incorporate some (if not all) of the suggested features above and still hit a $60 price tag, but a tag that many more would be willing to pay (in my opinion).

That's it for now!

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This bear idea has everything to be the best thing ever but the quality is so bad... I'm trying to upload more songs to the current ones but the bear is not updating it. The computer shows Ive deleted the songs and added more but when I test on the bear it doesnt update. Also, the website is so bugged... it is horrible. You cant scroll down properly nd uploading song via their website is a nightmare. Also, we couldnt find out how to recharge the bear. after many trials my husband figured out that you need to turn the bear off and then charge it otherwise it doesnt work. I would not recommend anyone to buy this.

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The first bear I ordered did not work. Amazon was VERY helpful with attempting to correct the problem and when that did not work it was replaced the next day. The new bear stopped working 5 weeks later. I am now attempting to obtain a refund. I am not pleased with the quality of the bear's sound or ease of use. I do NOT recommend this product.

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Cuddletunes Teddy Bear MP3 Player and Web Recorder with Blue RibbonCuddletunes Teddy Bear MP3 Player and Web Recorder

The Cuddletunes Bear is the perfect gift for young children and older kids too. It's a great way for families to stay connected. We live on the East Coast and our grandsons live on the West Coast. With the "magic" of a Cuddletunes Bear, we can continue to read bedtime stories, even when we are thousands of miles away. While visiting our grandson, he couldn't wait to share with us his personalized lullabies. It is a combination of an old fashioned cuddly toy and the best use of today's technology.

WJ Fantasy, Inc. ABC Building Blocks

My 16 month old son plays with these blocks occassionally. He finds placing the smaller boxes inside of the larger ones quite enjoyable. One problem is that it's easy to lose the final two boxes because of there size. Apart from that, they are quite durable.

Fisher-Price Fun to Discover Bead Ball

We were surprised to read all the negative reviews. Our daughter, 7 months old loves it. She holds it up and grabs the individual beads rather than bashing the 'ball' like all the other toys she bashes. The beads are just perfect for her developing finger coordination.

We did get it at a flea market, and i'm not sure spend 25 on it, but we all love the toy.

My son, who has been known to spend nearly an hour at a time playing with empty plastic soda bottles, has literally had this toy in his hands for a combined thirty seconds or so since I got it for him about eight months ago (when he was six months old). He will pick it up, attempt to move some of the beads, and then put it back down five seconds later in frustration. It's not hard to see why; even as an adult with fairly well-developed spatial reasoning skills, it's a real chore to move the beads. The coordination that it takes to hold the ball steady with one hand while moving the beads across the bendy, relatively tightly fitted wires is on a level that many people are never able to master in the course of their entire lives, and to expect a baby or toddler to be able to figure this thing out is ridiculous. Seriously, if your one-year-old can effortlessly move the beads around on this thing, you may have some sort of child prodigy.

Not only that, but due to its odd shape, it's not even really useful as a ball.

It seemed like a cool idea, but practically, it's just about the worst toy I've ever bought. Even knowing that all kids are different and some will love toys that others hate, I just can't recommend this to anyone.

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My baby (14 months) didn't like this bead ball at all. I tried to keep it in her sight, thinking she might pick it up some time. But it never happened. It's waste of money IMHO.

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Little Tikes Discover Sounds Universal Remote Control - English, Spanish & French

Grandbaby LOVES this toy. We didn`t want her to touch the `big people`s remote`--too many germs. She loves having her own and we love having an appropriate alternative. Much to our surprise she responds to the French and Spanish language choices (fits of giggles over OCHO). Works wells with the multilingual aspects of Sesame Street. Prompt service with excellent packaging. Thanks.

The Lorax

This little guy looks more like the Lorax in real life than in the photo, he is so cute! He is no bigger than your hand, so don't lose him. Mustache can be poofed to shape in any direction, he's soft and cuddly, but just really tiny. I would say four to six inches in height.

Granddaughter loves him and he's not so big she can't take him to bed with her and in the car

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Our grandson absolutely loves the Lorax movie so we thought he would adore this little guy too.

It is a gift for Christmas so we won't know for several months how he likes this, but the adults all think it is adorable.

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If I had to be disappointed it would be with the size. But I read the reviews and still bought this and love it!! Fast Shipping!!!

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I got this for a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower. It was slightly on the small side but was a perfect decoration. It's really cute!

Little Tikes Animal Roller Purple Elephant

This rolls easily, but it just couldn't hold my children's attention. It is weird because it has a rubbery trunk that doesn't look like a real elephant.