Baby's First Steps - Mummy's First Headache (VTech First Steps Baby Walker Plus)

Member Name: sersha

Product:	VTech First Steps Baby Walker Plus
Date:	21/12/05 (297 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: helps to encourage walking, music centre keeps baby occupied

Disadvantages: noise can be a bit much!

Stylish, intelligent mothers buy their children traditional wooden baby walkers with trays of bricks at the front. I thought I was reasonably intelligent (stylish is something I can't ever hope to be) but when it comes to choosing a baby walker, I let my heart rule my head. Lots of flashy buttons and lights and noises and wind-up things? She'll love it! My head has been thumping for three months solidly....

It's nice and sturdy and won't topple or get easily damaged as it is very hard-wearing, like most plastic toys! It has an easy-to-grip handle, light-weight wheels and provides a nice wide walking space so that baby can stumble about a bit but still not topple too much.

It comes with a "learning centre" which is detachable from the main walker. If attached it's hard to get Leah to use the walker properly for walking, as she prefers to lean over and fiddle with the buttons and not actually go anywhere. If it didn't detach, the whole walker thing would be pretty pointless!

The activity centre has a musical keyboard with notes from A to E that light up and have different animals and the sounds they make. e.g. "E is for Elephant". (The Dooyoo picture is the old style walker, the new one is slightly different.)

It also has a phone (baby's favourite bit) that comes off which I seem to have spent hours talking to Granny on, although of course poor Granny can't hear a word I'm saying.

There are various wind-up spirals and buttons that teach
numbers, animals and colours, and the centre plays songs and a total of 10 nursery rhymes. The buttons have helped Leah's finger control and manipulative skills no end - now she can turn off the washing machine mid-cycle, turn off the Sky Box and reconfigure the printer all at the touch of a few buttons! Sigh...

The tunes drive you a bit demented after a while "Puppy says clap your hands!" ARRRRRRRRRGH!!! But there are two volume settings and also an ON/OFF switch, which thankfully is quite hard for little fingers to operate.

With the learning centre detached, there is little difference between this and a traditional walker - it's just something sturdy and undamagable to help baby take some steps while holding on to something for support - giving their parent's hands a break! To start with I had to hold the walker firmly otherwise it would just have been rolled away and Leah would have fallen flat on her face, but when she was able to stand up by herself and control it, it became much easier for her to use.

The activity centre is probably the main attraction of this particular walker, as it captures the attention and is a fun toy that will occupy baby for quite some time (Leah is still not bored by it after almost 3 months continuous use).

It is officially suitable from 6 months, although most babies don't need a walker quite that early and would probably begin to use it somewhere around 9/10 months of age.

The walker folds flat for easy storage (you can shove it under the sofa in no time!)

It takes 2 x AA batteries and weighs 3.4kg which is nice and light to move from room to room with only one free hand!

Summary: A noisy, flashy, but fun baby walker