Fisher-Price Toys

 

I started writing this article with the intention of writing a rant on how Fisher-Price

toys are way too expensive and over-hyped. SO I started to do some research and realized that they’re expensive only in MY country and MY local shops. The Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Love to Play Puppy (AKA The Puppy) cost 50 US dollars (it was later on sale at the wonderful price of 40 bucks). The reason behind this is that the toy was “translated” to our language here in Europe. Instead of the English language, you would hear our native language. This blew my mind cause this is a huge discrepancy in price. On amazon you can get the the Puppy for under 20 US dollars. If I knew this at the start I would have gotten him the English version; everyone knows and needs to learn English anyways today… why not with the help of a cute little plush puppy? 😀

The Laugh ‘N Learn series

The same thing happened when we got the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Storybook as a present for a baby shower. It cost 40 bucks where as you can get the English version on amazon for less than 20 US dollars just like The Puppy. Come to think of it why even bother getting a toy like this in your native tongue where the child is already surrounded with people speaking the language which the baby will pick up eventually. It seems rather unnecessary but still, Kudos to Fisher-Price

for even introducing their line of Laugh ‘N Learn toys for different countries and languages.

 The market group is obviously us, the parents…  and the tagline says it all: “Laugh and Learn”. We all want our children to laugh and learn. And this is the problem I have with Fisher Price toys… they’re way to focused on us the parents. The design and messages just scream “oh how cute”.. and that’s when you get hooked and you ask for more. And there sure is plenty out there, just look at the Laugh ‘N Learn series: puppies, remote controls, books… even chairs!! One Laugh and Learn toy per child is quite enough :).

Quality and design

Fisher Price toys are beautiful aren’t they? They really do look very pretty. But do they deliver what they promise. In quality and durability they most certainly do. I still haven’t seen a broken Fisher Price toy, really! My son played and played with them and now even my daughter plays with them. The same goes for all of my nieces toys. As far as the didactic aspect, it all depends on the kid itself. Some like playing with such toys and others don’t but never the less it is an interesting feature to Fisher Price toys which is hard to find in the similar price range.

And for all the other toys/stuff you might need.. just look at this baby teether. So cute! 🙂

 

And what about the Doodle Pro? Well, it’s been a year since we got it and I believe I can freely throw my two cents at it.

As other Fisher Price toys the Doodle PRO magnetic drawing board is very sturdy. The packaging says it’s not for kids under the age of three, but that did not stop us from getting the pretty purple Doodle Pro for our daughter who was only a year and a half old at the time. I mean look at it, it really is amazingly cute :). There’s also a boy’s variant that is blue out there but we didn’t spend much time looking at it. We were aiming to spend a bit less on a drawing board but this one was the biggest and by far the cutest. Even though FP toys are more expensive here we got it because we had received a coupon for the store we found it in. Otherwise we would have surely got it online because it is almost half the price on Amazon, and can sometimes go for under 10 dollars!

We used to own another magnetic drawing board and it wasn’t as good. The drawings were not as visible, the pen wasn’t as well made as this one. The pen was not strongly tied to the sketch board which is very important as you do not want to loose it. It is quite large (the surface is slightly larger than 10×7 inches (26×19 cm). The 4 stamps that come with it often fall out so you have to look for them but my youngest really likes them. It really handles well and it can take some damage; I am quite positive it will stay tied to the doodle board for a long time. The eraser also works perfectly and it only takes a swipe or two to completely erase the board.

Please take into account that this toy has been thrown around, stomped on and what else not by my now 2.5 year old daughter and my 6 year old son and it still works perfectly. YEP!