This was bought for my daughter's first Christmas, although at 3 months old she wasn't quite ready to sit down and play with it. My daughter is now over a year and has lots of fun with this. It contains a tea pot two cups and a tray which has been moulded for the three cakes which have a circular, square and triangular base to fit into.

Cost and Packaging
This product costs around £20, however, if you shop around you can get it cheaper. For example, B&M Bargains was selling this for a while - they may still be selling it. I think that this is a little expensive, but if I was honest, I would say this about the price of most children's toys, so perhaps it is not any more expensive than anything else.

Like many toys you buy this came wired to cardboard with wires holding the cups in place. I didn't like this feature as I still remember putting water in my cups and saucer as a child and obviously you wouldn't be able to do that with this product. Perhaps this is deliberate - we do all seem to have gone health and safety mad! Whilst there was a lot of packaging, this is pretty standard with children's toys.

Quality
I quite like the quality of this product; there seems to be a wide range of plastic toys on the market and there can be a great disparity in the quality of these, but this is fine. Randomly, two of the cakes seem better quality than the last. The cherry cake and the yellow cake are sold shapes, where the brown cake has no base on it, and is made from a different kind of plastic.

Playing with the toy

I have always had a bit of an attitude about 'educational' toys. I think it is the way that parents interact with the child and the toy makes it educational.

There are three settings on the tea pot and I really like some of the things the tea pot does. It can make a really nice pouring noise as your baby tips the tea pot up. There are also a couple of songs. I feel that the song about saying please and thank you is unnecessary, and, as we're Scottish, I would really rather my daughter didn't learn to say these words with an English accent. Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-English, I also hate hearing children born and bred in Glasgow speaking as though they have been growing up in America!

It is nice to see how your baby manipulates the cake as she tries to fit them onto the plate, getting better with practice. My dd is also always trying to steal my cups of tea so that it is nice that her and I are able to sit and have a cup together.

Changes
It would be nice if this product came in a colour other than pink! A lot of people would not give their baby boy this product, and I'm sure they'd like to play!