My son received this ELC Seaside Pour and Play bath time toy as a gift for his first birthday. From that day until this (just over 2 months now) it has been a mainstay in our bathroom and has featured in every bath time. The set costs £10 from Early Learning Centre and it is suitable from 12 months of age. Looking on the Early Learning Centre website, it looks like the set has been updated recently so is slightly different to the set that I am reviewing (which is the one pictured above) but a lot of the features do remain the same.

THE TOY

The toy is basically a bar that sticks to the side of the bath tub with suction pads (one at each end). This is a green plastic bar with blue waves pictured on it. From this, four different plastic toys hang by hooking over the bar. These are different shapes and perform different functions. Each also has another plastic toy sitting in it. There are two red toys hanging from the bar - a scoop which can be filled with water and then this can be poured out and a base for a yellow water wheel. To use this, you can pour water over the wheel and the weight of this rotates it round. There is also a pale blue shower attachment, which is circular in shape and has lots of holes in the bottom so it can be filled with water and lifted up so that it drips out as it would from a shower. The final attachment is a green tap like toy. This has an orange plastic 'turner' on the front to turn this on and off. Again, this can be filled with water and this trickles out through the bottom.

As well as the water wheel there are three other plastic squirty toys that can be filled with water and then squeezed to shoot it out. Two of these are yellow - a whale and a seahorse - and the other blue - a starfish. These are quite a soft plastic so squeeze easily.

PLAY TIME

The bar remains attached to the side of our bath tub so it is always there when my son gets into the bath. It is always the first thing he looks for and he reaches for it immediately. He likes to remove all the plastic holders and dunk them, and the toys inside, in his bath. The top of the plastic holders have a textured pattern - stripes or circles - that he likes to feel or bite on. At 14 months, he enjoys to watch as I pour water over the water wheel to make it spin around but he lacks the understanding or co-ordination to do this himself yet.

He enjoys the movement of the water from the holders - the 'shower' and the 'tap' and smiles as this trickles out. He also likes to squeeze and bite on the 'squirter' toys although he does not quite get the hang of the purpose of these yet. Again, he laughs if you squirt he with the water though. I think that, as he gets older and develops more skills, he will gain more enjoyment from the set and interact with it more.

MUM'S OPINION

At first, I was dubious as to how well this would stay in place on the side of the bath. With previous experience, the suction cups do not offer great grip and fall off after a period of time. With this toy, I have not found this to be the case at all. Quite conversely, the suction is very good and the toy holds in place exceptionally well. The only problem that we have with the toy bar is that my son tries to use it to pull himself up on which could be quite dangerous. Obviously bath time is strictly supervised though so this is not too much of an issue.

The toys themselves are fun and also help my son to learn about water and it's movement. It also helps him to discover that water can be fun and that bath time is a nice time for us to share and play together. They toys also provide a great distraction when it comes to hair wash time - which he seems to despise increasingly these days!

We have certainly already had value for money from these toys and I envisage that we will get a lot more use out of them yet. The squirty toys have worn well and none of the painted facial features have worn like they have on some of his other toys. I think that the set is very good value for money and like the fact that there is a lot for your child to do with this rather than just have things float in the bath with them. Recommended.