Baby Toy Review: LeapStart Learning Table

The Learning Table is a Leap Frog product and from previous Leap Frog products we've purchased, we believed that our daughter would love this table. The table is supported by four wide plastic blue legs and tabletop is chock full of noisy toys the child can play with and explore, as well as lights and music. As an additional bonus, there are two sets of sounds, depending on whether the table is in Learn Mode or Music Mode. You choose which mode the table is in by flipping a plastic "page" of a book in the center of the table.

In the LeapStart's Learning Mode, pressing a key on the keyboard reacts by naming a color in a sing-song voice. The Learning Table also lets of peals of numbers. Opening a little door will prompt, "Open!" and when you close it...well, you can guess. In the Music Mode, sliding the trombone up and down produces a sliding pitch of a trombone. Hitting the piano keys results in different upbeat jazzy music. All the sounds and music are clever and fresh. There are a few old numbers, like Greensleeves, but no Old Mac Donald here. It's nice to have a toy that doesn't play the same music that every other toy plays. Everything on the table reacts in a vibrant and interesting way.

For the first few months in our possession, my daughter would not leave this toy alone. She was seven months old when she first started playing with it, listening to the jazzed-up version of the ABC song, hiding her pacifier in the little compartment, pulling on the banjo so it would make noise, slamming on the triangle and circle buttons to hear different drumrolls. She obviously preferred the Music Mode, though occasionally, she'd flip the page and go back to the learning mode if she got bored. I could walk away and get something from another room and she wouldn't realize it because she was so engaged by the toy, even months after getting it. Forty dollars for this LeapStart Learning Table was MORE than worth it for the freedom it gave her and myself.

Eventually, my daughter did lose interest, but it was a good thing. The LeapStart Learning Table encouraged her to pull up, stand, and walk. First she started pulling up on the Learning Table so she could play with it, then standing at it for hours, then cruising from toy to couch and back around, and finally, learning to walk to the table on her own. I don't imagine everyone has these results, but the makers of the Learning Table had this in mind when designing this well thought-out and imaginative table. It certainly couldn't hurt.

Now that my daughter is a confident walker and can run around, she was only interested in that. We plan to pull the LeapStart Learning Table out of the garage soon and reintroduce it to her. I'm sure she'll recognize it's sweet music and fall in love with it all over again.