It’s that wonderful time of the year again- a time to wish good tidings and a happy Christmas to our dear ones. If your list of ‘dear ones’ includes a 1-month old babe, I bet nothing will bring the magic of Christmas better than an activity gym.
As the parent, an activity gym (also known as a baby gym or simply a play mat) is a great place to keep the baby safely entertained when you have other meaty tasks in hand.
But perhaps what you don’t know is how much infants learn from these baby products. And that’s what I’ll be expounding in this review of the Infantino Twist and Fold Vintage Activity Gym besides explaining what makes it the best Christmas gift idea for a 1-month old baby.
The Infantino is a mid-range play mat designed to offer your infant hours of endless fun through exploration and self-discovery. This mat has a bottom measuring 30 inches by 30 inches and comes in 3 designs: the Vintage Boy that is marketed more towards boys although girls will reap lots of fun from it too, the Pond Pals that favors both genders, and the all-pink Sweet Safari that will definitely interest girls the most.
The Infantino is crafted to be of great use from your child’s first day to their first birthday. That’s to say that it is designed to offer all the initial building blocks that they will need in other areas of their life.
The very first thing that most parents tend to love most about this gym is its playful color design. The mat itself (the bottom part) features a quilted theme with several brightly contrasting yet kid-friendly patterns for the best visual stimulation and development as well as brain growth.
To answer the most obvious question in your mind, this mat has a thin padding at the bottom. Although it feels okay to place your baby on it on wooden floors, you might want to position it on rugs, blanket, or towel if you want to add another level of cushioning and comfort.
Another likable feature about this activity gym is that it offers your baby 3 ways to play with it over its usable period. During the first few weeks, the child will spend most of the time sleeping on the back and gazing at the play pals above.
While they might not seem interested in the toys during the first few weeks (because their eyesight is limited to a few inches only), the toys will soon be the center of focus as the vision develops. These 4 toys (a rattling giraffe, click-clack elephant, teether monkey, and a jingling lion) hang low enough to allow the kid to grasp them albeit reflexively.
At around 6 weeks, wiggling, rattling, and shaking the toys will help develop the child’s understanding of cause and effect. 5 to 6 months down the line, your babe will have learned how to hold the toys voluntarily for a closer inspection. This will boost their visual understanding of the things that they hold.
This activity gym also has another fun feature that has become standard with most play mats today- you guessed it right, a large peek-a-boo mirror. They might not notice themselves in the mirror during the first few weeks. But they’ll soon start staring and reaching at the image at around 3-5 months and even start making faces and laughing with their new pal at around 6-9 months as they develop self-awareness.
The Infantino Twist and Fold Activity gym also aims at offering the user a breezy tummy time as the included bolster pillow implies. You must have heard of this term by now. Tummy time basically strengthens the baby’s neck, arms, and back. It also boosts in the development of other vital gross motor skills (such as rolling and crawling), hand skills, visual skills, and speech and feeding skills.
So, what we’ve seen so far are the beneficial influences that this activity gym will have on your child’s cognitive and motor skills development. But what features make it a great pick for the parent?
First, its ease of assembly and use. When Infantino calls this play mat a Twist and Fold model, know that they mean every word of it. Setting up is as simple as pushing the plastic thingy at the top. What’s more exciting is that you can open it single-handedly. This functionality will come in handy especially when you’ll want to set it up while holding your baby in your other hand.
This baby gym also collapses as easily as it opens up and shouldn’t take more than 2 minutes. On this note, what you’ll like is that it’s very compact when folded. This not only makes storage easy, but it also makes ferrying it wherever your kid goes a breeze.
It’s also very easy to clean it. All the 3 components (mat, crossbars, and toys) are detachable. Some wipes are all you’ll need to keep the toys and bars clean. The mat can easily go in the washing machine although it’s not advisable to tumble dry it.
Other parents’ views in a glance
The Infantino is one of the best play mats for kids this year and it’s bound to remain so even in 2019. It has received a lot of love from the parents with most of them highlighting its cute design with vibrant and eye-catching colors. Most of them also appreciate its ease of assembly and how easy and fast it is to set it up and fold for storage.
Although there are a few parents who reported that their kids didn’t love their gym, most of them say that it works like charm in keeping the baby entertained no matter how fussy they were before putting them on the mat.
Pros
- Very easy to assemble
- Opens up at the push of a button
- Open up single-handedly
- Pulls apart easily for cleaning
- A lot of brightly colored toys
- Toys can be positioned lower or higher
- You can reposition, add, or even replace the toys
Cons
- Bolster pillow moves during tummy time
- A music element could be a great addition
Picture belong to Infantino