Great if you like singing along to B-I-N-G-O all day long (Playskool Kick Start Fold n Go Gym)

Member Name: arleek

Product:	Playskool Kick Start Fold n Go Gym
Date:	27/02/09 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good entertainment, lightweight, folds away

Disadvantages: Tunes are really quite annoying

This was a Christmas present for my youngest daughter (not from us) who was 2 months old at the time. And I must admit my first thoughts were:

'oh no not another giant plastic piece of junk that makes ridiculous noises and is just generally annoying...'

But I was wrong in nearly every aspect of that thought. My daughter actually loves this thing. If I lay her down and she starts to cry cos I've put her down, as soon as she sees me getting this out her legs and arms start flapping around and her mouth opens excitedly...so it really is good entertainment for your little one.

Let me describe the item in question.

When we opened the box we realised we would have to build it ourselves before she could use it, but it was pretty simple, just a matter of attaching the arms and legs with the screws provided. Even though I say it's simple, I still managed to put it together back to front - an easy mistake and easy to rectify.

So once assembled it sits on the floor with two long plastic legs stretched either side to keep it stable. There is a soft plastic foot section along the bottom where the baby's feet are meant to rest and kick to activate the sound controls (the sounds are just activated by movement, not the actual foot rest - I thought it was some ingenious thing that was all connected up, and you had to press the foot rest, but it's not, it's just the movements of the baby's legs that sets it off). At the top is a white unit with 3 different coloured lights that flash in time to the music or sounds, and 2 dangling plastic bird type things which move a little bit when the baby kicks the foot rest.

When baby is not using it, it can be folded away - by folded away I mean the two legs at the bottom fold up so they are flush with the arms at the top. This is quite handy as we just store it down the side of the settee, within arms reach for whenever baby needs a play.

The tunes are quite annoying, I think I recognise BINGO (there was a man he had a dog and Bingo was his name..), Pop Goes The Weasel, and some other tune which I don't recognise. In between each tune there are various sounds such as birds tweeting, and other weird annoying noises that seem to entertain my daughter!!

There are two settings, one is where it will play continuously, and the other where the tune or sounds will change when the baby kicks. The first setting is better for a baby who doesn't move much, and the second for an active baby (like my daughter who enjoys kicking anything and seeing what happens).

The unit is quite lightweight so if your baby is quite strong, they could actually end up kicking it away from themselves. I have seen by daughter work herself away from it a few times. I have just noticed, it does actually have some red gripper type things on the bottom of it which I presume are to stop it from sliding around on the floor, which is a good idea but doesn't work too well.

Anyway, all in all a good toy for your baby, if you like this type of thing. I would say it would last a baby from birth up til about 5 months when they'll probably be more interested in playing with toys that they can hold.

It takes 3 x AA batteries (and uses them quite quickly, I've just replaced ours and its only been going for 2 months)

I think they cost about £15 from Argos.

Summary: Entertainment for your little baby