My daughter was almost 2 months old for her first Christmas, this didn't stop her receiving a huge amount of toys even though she couldn't play with them all. Many of these presents are still played with today, and no matter how much I try and get rid of them she always wants to play with them more and more. One of these toys is the VTech soft singing phone.

----- The phone -----
The phone is around 15cm high and 5cm wide. It is made from a chunky type plastic and is quite heavy for a baby. The phone has a stretch of material going around the outside, this is what I gather as the soft part from the name, but it isn't very soft. There is a material loop with a small bit of Velcro so that they toy can be hung from a bar, on a buggy for example, even though the toy is quite heavy the Velcro doesn't come apart and can hold the toy quite easily.

The toy presents lots of activity, at the top in a semicircle is a tube that houses some small balls that can roll around, this semicircle frames the non breakable mirror. Below the mirror is the on/off switch, the switch is quite stiff so young babies can't turn it on or off themselves (which is a good thing when it starts driving mummy crazy!). Then there are 4 buttons, each one has a different shape, colour, number and animal. The first one, for example, is red, round, the number one and has a picture of a cat upon it. At the very bottom of the phone is a green and yellow ball that can be spun around.

----- Using the phone -----
When the phone is taken out of the packaging it has a demo tag that needs to pulled from the back of the phone. After doing this the sound is a lot quieter than when it was it in the box. I had a read through the safety guidelines in the leaflet and it said this was the case with all of these phones so I didn't get a broken one like I first thought.

When the buttons of the phone are pressed it will (using the first button for example again) meow and say "hello cat", it will do this for each of the buttons with the corresponding sound for each different animal. If the button is pressed again it will say the number on the button then proceed into a song. The songs are well known nursery rhymes, some of these include Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Row Row Row Your Boat and Mary Had A Little Lamb. The lights underneath the buttons will light up each time a button is pressed, and also continue to light up whilst the songs are being played.

Kacie received this toy when she was a little under two months old, and although she couldn't grasp it and play with it herself, she loved listening to the tunes and watching all of the buttons light up. Around the age of one Kacie began to use this phone as an actual phone instead of just pushing the buttons. She often babbles away to herself while holding it to her ear. Ever since she could start to play with it herself it has been played with frequently. We have a toy box in her bedroom for toys she doesn't play with often and every time I put this in there she always gets it back out to take downstairs again.

The batteries don't last as long as some of her other toys, I've had to change them 4 or 5 times in the duration of having this phone, whereas some of her other toys haven't needed the batteries changed at all. This phone takes 2xAA batteries.

----- Suitability and price -----
The age recommendation for this toy is for children between the ages of 3 and 24 months. I'm not sure why they put an upper age limit, but I'm quite sure that Kacie will carry on playing with it above this age.
The Vtech phone is available from most toy stockists and has a RRP of £9.99, although it's one of those toys that is more often than not on sale somewhere.

----- Overall -----
I would recommend this phone for any baby or toddler, it helps with fine motor skill development, sensory development, and as they get older imaginative play too. Kacie certainly loves this phone and it has certainly had more than it's money worth of use!