Baby received this as a gift for her first birthday, and we have been having a lot of fun with it at bath time. However, it retails for between £9-£11 which I think is quite steep for what it is.

What do you get?
For your money you get a floating base shaped into eight octopus arms onto which you place the head of the mummy/daddy octopus and the eight octopus babies. The parent octopus head is essentially an inverted plastic cup with a series of holes in the top; the babies are colourful squirters, two each of pink, blue, yellow and orange. They are numbered one to eight and have different facial expressions. They work well and are of good quality. We have some bath squirters that fail to refill with water -or air- easily after they are squeezed, but the Octopals don't fall into that category. A novelty factor is that they can be stuck to the bath, tiles or shower screen; but they really do stick fast and can be hard to prise off. Certainly, Baby cannot do this on her own at the moment. There is one rogue octo-baby in our set, however that will not stick to the bath at all. Grrrr!

Playtime!
The parent octopus can be used to sprinkle water over baby, make 'rain', and blitz the bath bubbles, if you have any. The squirters squirt water on baby, or they can be squeezed under water to make bubbles or jets of water and 'fountains'. They can also be used for identifying colours, counting and imaginative play, though at 9 months (corrected age) we have yet to do these latter.
At present Baby enjoys the squirting and will most definitely reach for the octopals-good practice of lunging and stretching- which she then simply chews. I do the imaginative stuff and the squirting. The Octopals provide a lot of fun, but they don't do anything especially unusual which is why I think the price is high. We have other squirty toys and also a watering can for bath time and get just as much fun from these- more actually because with the watering can you can stop and start pouring the water, whereas with the parent octopus you have no means of stopping once started. You just have to refill.


So overall, great if you get it as a gift, but if you are strapped for cash opt for a watering can and a good set of squirters instead.