28 out of 29 people found this review helpful.
Now They Even Have Vibrating Chairs for Kids.
Date of Review: Aug 31, 2008
The Bottom Line: This is a well made child seat, and you will not want to stop using it, even when the child gets older.
After having raised eight kids, my wife and I are now onto our grandkids. Thank heavens that we saved a bunch of our baby supplies and handed them down from one kid to the other. One of the most usable baby pieces of furniture that I have found is this infant toddler rocker made by Fisher-Price. You can find these and any Toys "R" Us or Babies "R" Us, and the price will range anywhere from $35-$45. If you do not like going out and shopping at different stores you can also find this Amazon.com for right around $45. I really prefer purchasing this kind of stuff at Toys "R" Us, because they usually have a whole line displayed out for everyone to see, plus how they are dressed up and put together. When these first came out, we knew them to be something that they called a bouncer chair. That is basically what they did, and that was bounce, hence the name. But, now these come with a way to turn them into a three stage chair for your child, this chair will change just as your child will, from a feeding seat to a rocker recliner that vibrates.
Description
The main thing to remember about this is the weight limit, and that it will only hold up to 40 pounds as your child grows up. The material that covers this toddler rocker is very easy to clean and durable, this padded cushion is blue in color. When you first receive this and open up the box, you will get several pieces that you will have to assemble. These include the seat back tube, three toys, two side rails, 4 retainers and lock nuts, a cross brace, a toy bar, kickstand, and a front tube with a vibration control device attached to it. The vibration device will take one D. battery, and as long as you use the alkaline type battery, the power will last for quite a while. As your child grows older he gets bigger the three point restraint that will hold your child in place will adjust to their size.
Features
There are several features that make this a very nice piece of furniture for your child to grow up with, one of them is the fact that it only weighs approximately 9 pounds and you can stop this from rocking by extending out the kickstand. The vibration device is really nice because it gives the whole chair or rocker the feeling of being in a car, and it will soothe your child to sleep very quickly. If your child wishes to just sit there and play, there is a toy bar that you can attach, plus this will come with three attachable toys that your child can interact with, one will be a cow and pull on and they will hear a song. The next will be a piggy that they can push on and they can hear it rattle, and a third will be a lamb that spins. This rocker has three stages, the first stage is from birth to about three months of age, the second stage is from three to six months of age, and the third stage is from six months old to whenever they hit 40 pounds. They hanging toys will keep your child, amazed with their bright colors. When your child gets too large to enjoy the hanging toys, you can turn this into a recliner with two different positions, until they're too large to use it anymore. The padded cushion is removable, to be able to throw into the washing machine and clean it on a daily basis if you wish.
Assembly
Some of the pieces that you get will already be assembled a little bit. But there is quite a bit of other assembly that you will have to do. You will have to assemble the two side rails and the tube for the back of the seat, which will basically pop into place. Then you will have to attach the cross brace, which will keep this in the shape that you need it to be in. You will have to use two screws to put this on, but the back tube will just pop into place. The side rail that has the vibration device will also take a couple screws to hold it in place. When installing the kickstand, all you'll have to do is push a little tab or button and it will also pop in place. Now that you have made the frame is time to attach the padded cushion, and there is really no adjustments to be made. Everything just clips into place like seatbelts do in a car. Once you have done this it is time to install the battery inside of the vibration device. You will need a Phillips screwdriver to take off the cover and install battery.
Experience and Durability
Every time a new child comes around we are using this. This is very durable and can take a little bit of a beating. As your child gets older, (just as ours did), they will want to just throw themselves into this chair and you pray to God that it does not break or tip over when they do this. Sometimes, they get a little bit rambunctious and tried to rock to hard, that is why it is a very good idea not to have this on the table. Always placed this on the floor, the rocking motion will cause this to move every so slightly, and it could possibly fall off of the table. There have been several times that our child has gotten cranky, and we did not know what to do with them so we put them inside of this rocker and turned the vibrator on, and the next thing you know, they are fast asleep. This does have a power switch, to be able to turn it on and off whenever needed.
Conclusion
Our children have tested our patience with this, especially when they get a little bit older, and they can crawl around and try to get out of this chair. Even with the three point restraint, somehow they seem to be able to wiggle their way of around; we have even caught our child turned over and on their knees inside of this chair. For the most part, this is an excellent piece of furniture and well worth the money spent. I don't know how they did in the old days when they did not have this.
