These days, Lollipop is up on her feet almost all of the time. She is a very confident ‘cruiser’ (why oh why do they call it that??) but is not yet fully brave enough to risk too much ‘free walking’ so when it came to choosing a birthday gift for her first birthday, a walker seemed like the obvious choice. As usual, I didn’t just walk into a shop and pick up the first one that I saw…..there was no way I was going to let an opportunity to spend hours scouring the web pass me by.
From my research (and past experience with Mr Moo), I think that the key to a good walker is a mixture of:
- stability (you need one that won’t tip over easily - well, not many one year olds understand the law of the lever and baba / walker pile ups on the living room floor ain’t pretty);
- traction (a lot of walkers have no traction whatsoever which causes them to shoot forward too quickly leaving your baba with a face full of floor boards!);
- longevity (a toy that is just a walker has a short shelf life so the best ones have a life long after the all too short cruising stage is over).
Here are four of the best ones that I found:
Old school – This John Crane walker is full of lovely building blocks which will provide hours of fun – take out the blocks and any favourite toys or teddy bear passengers can be transported:
Girly Girl – This Pintoy walker doubles as a pram so your little lady and her dolls can get out and about:
Activity-a-go-g0 – This EverEarth walker has lots of clever built in activities to entertain your baba - plus it’s eco friendly and is an award winner (it won the Creative Child Magazine 2009 Preferred Choice Award in the Toddler Toys Activity Center category)
Transformer – The Mishi Design Grow Up is the Madonna of walkers as it can totally reinvent itself each time your baba grows out of it. It starts life as a walker with a basket then transforms into a ride-on bike with a trailer and then for it’s finale it turns into a trolley – fantastically clever!
