Baby Toy Review: Baby Einstein Play Gym

When babies are younger, such as two months old, they want to play with toys, but lack the skills to do so. They are rather bored just being held or lying about. There grips are not yet strong enough to hold many toys, nor are they able to sit up on their own or crawl. Toy option are pretty limited for young infants, who don't possess enough motor skills or fine motor skills to really be able to play with anything.

I discovered the Baby Einstein Play Gym from my sister. Our children are exactly twenty days apart, so her son is always in the same stages as my daughter. He showed the same signs of being bored and wanting to play, but having nothing but his mobile to look at. She had bought the Baby Einstein Play Gym for him to allieviate his boredom. I had thought it was cute and interesting and considered it...until she mentioned the price. It retails at sixty dollars almost anywhere you go, online or in stores. The Baby Einstein Play Gym is simply a soft blanket/mat with two crossing curvative bars that dangle toys and mirrors. It has a little headrest pillow that looks like an infant-sized body pillow. There didn't seem much to it to warrant being priced at sixty dollars. Once you have a child, you start paying attention to how much baby items are and it begins to seem like a racket. And after all the other all-important baby purchases your sure to have all done, paying sixty dollars for essentially a blanket and some small hanging toys just doesn't seem worth it.

My nephew loved his Baby Einstein Play Gym, and when I visited, my daughter loved it too. She'd gaze longingly at the 10 toys clipped onto the bars and especially loved the star with lights that would play Beethoven and Bach. It was as though she was hypnotized by the lights and music. You could see her perk up when a particular song played, but I never was able to figure out which song it was.

In the end, I did not buy the Baby Einstein Play Gym. Instead, whenever we'd come to visit or my sister babysat, my daughter would enjoy it then. I felt bad not buying it because she obviously loved it very much. However, in a few months, she was crawling and playing with toys and would no longer be interested in a play gym. I'm glad I saved my sixty dollars for more important things. I still feel that although the design of the Baby Einstein Play Gym is adorable and vibrant and the music is very appealing, it simply wasn't worth it for our family. It would be a good product for the short time that our daughter couldn't crawl, but after that it would be completely worthless. Sixty dollars for a play gym is a bit much. There are other play gyms on the market that are just as good, only they don't pack such a wallop on your finances.