Lovevery Review 7: The Babbler Play Kit Months 13-15
October 24, 2023
Disclaimer
My son was born prematurely. He was born at 26 weeks and 6 days (3 months and 1 day early). If this box is for a baby 13-15 months, that means it should have worked for Aryi at 16-18 months, in theory. I feel that all of this makes our experience with development and play particularly unique, and our thoughts on the playkits particularly unique.
Play Guide Months 13-15
This Play Guide is priceless. It is full of useful information about development through this age group. It also contains a guide to how to play with each toy in the box. There are even further ways to play with your child with items you can buy cheaply or items you might have around your house. This can be extremely helpful in working with your child on their development through play.
Lovevery: Not included in price breakdown
Slide and Seek Ball Run with Balls
This is one of the coolest baby/toddler toys that I have seen. Aryi loves a good ball drop. This ball drop in particular is harder since you have to push the ball in. Then we get to watch the ball roll down the circular slide. This helps with finger and hand strength helping in turn with fine motor skills in general. Opening and closing the doors is great problem solving and fine motor development. It was fun teaching Aryi to push the ball. While using this toy we got to learn and use the words push, down, in, out, open, and close. This toy is also exploring the concept of object permanence as other ball drops. The quality of this toy is amazing to me. Aryi has thrown this toy, as he throws everything and just beats it up in general.
The dupe I found on Amazon is basically the top half of this toy. There is no box with doors that open and close and no object permanence being learned. However, the dupe is about 7 dollars cheaper.
Lovevery: $20.89
Amazon Dupe: $13.98
Bunnies in a Felt Burrow
These bunnies are so cute. This toy is great for fine motor skills. Aryi loves to take them in and out of the burro. “Put it in, put it in, put it in” “take it out, take it out, take it out” we sing as we play with this toy. He is learning the concepts of in and out. Aryi loves to “feed” his bunnies the toy carrots from the posting box. I love that these two toys came in the same box. We also use these bunnies when we sing “hop little bunny, hop, hop, hop”. I do wish there was not a giant tag on one of the bunnies, but if that bothers you too much, you can just cut it off.
The dupe I found online is cheaper than the Lovevery toy.
Lovevery: $20.89
Amazon Dupe: $14.99
Flexible Wooden Stacker
This stacker has been amazing for Aryi’s fine motor skills. However, it is hard. I would definitely start with one of the bigger plastic donut stackers before moving onto a stacker like this. It is almost like this is an advanced stacker. We use the little circles sometimes to talk about color. I will sing the rainbow song and show the appropriate circle. Aryi can now call them circles too. We will also put these in Aryi’s Lovevery containers matching the color on the ring with the color on the Lid. This is a super fun activity for Aryi since he loves containers. Don’t be afraid to use toys in an “off label” way.
The dupe I found on amazon is also wooden and has fun rainbow colors, but does not have the advanced feel of these little circles that will improve fine motor skills exponentially. The dupe is a few dollars cheaper.
Lovevery: $20.89
Amazon Dupe: $15.00
Circle of Friends Puzzle
Aryi loves this puzzle. He loves to see people. He is very social. He likes to take a puzzle piece off and say “Hi” to the kids and put it back on and say “bye bye”. Aryi also loves to call the kids “baby” and show me which one has glasses like mama. I love that there is diversity in the children in the puzzle. This is a beautiful little puzzle.
I found a dupe that is pretty similar, but for $6 more than the toy in the Lovevery kit.
Lovevery: $20.89
Amazon Dupe: $29.00
Wooden Bank Set with Coin Lid and Coins, Carrot Lid with Carrots, and Posting Lid
This is one of my favorite toys. I love that they gave us different lids with different items to post. The carrots are made of a great teething material. Aryi loves to teethe with these now because he can shove them to the back where his teeth are coming out now. This is great for posting. The coin lid is also great. I would say this is a little advanced for a coin activity. I started Aryi on the Kiwico coin box that has much larger coins and allowed him to master it, before moving him to this toy. This box also comes with a third lid to post other items you might have around your house like Q tips and pipe cleaners. This is one of the things I have a problem with in the kits. It would not be that hard for them to include some toy Q tips or skinny posting sticks. This is something I never expected from Lovevery, since with every other box and toy, everything you need for each toy comes in the box.
The Amazon dup has a toy that actually has more features to it for a few dollars cheaper. However, the quality from what I can see in the pictures seems questionable.
Lovevery: $20.89
Amazon Dupe: $16.99
“Bedtime for Zoe”
We love this book. It is a real baby and her mother going through their bedtime routine. The bedtime routine seen in this book is similar to our own and I assume similar to most people’s. Therefore, this is a great book to not only teach but reinforce the idea of a routine and a bedtime routine. This book is in our bedtime book basket. It is always a book that Aryi gravitates towards at bedtime.
You can get a book like this on Amazon that seems similar for less than half the price.
Lovevery: $20.89
Amazon Dupe: $7.99
“Colorful Foods”
This book is great. It shows a diverse group of children each holding a food of a certain color with a matching outfit and background. We love going through this book. I tell Aryi the colors and we talk about the food the child is holding. Aryi always gets excited when we get to the bananas.
The dupe I found is a few dollars cheaper and shows food and colors, but is missing the aspect of the real children that Aryi loves so much.
Lovevery: $9.40
Amazon Dupe: $6.95
“Where is Crew’s Shoe?”
This book is so cute! Crew goes on a hunt to find his shoe. There are flaps on each page that Aryi gets to flp up and see what is under it. Aryi absolutely loves it.
The dupe is again a few dollars cheaper but not really the same.
Lovevery: $9.40
Amazon Dupe: $8.49
Worth it?
Amazon Dupes total out to be $123.83 after taxes are added.
The Lovevery Playkits come in a few buying options(6 items/playkit and 2 items/book bundle):
$120 for 1 box ($125.34 after taxes) – $20.89/item
$138 for 1 box with book bundle ($144.14 after taxes) – $20.89/item + $9.40/book bundle item
$342 for 3 boxes ($357.21 after taxes) – $19.85/item
$396 for 3 boxes with book bundle ($413.61 after taxes) – $19.85/item + $9.40/book bundle item
$432 for 4 boxes ($451.24 after taxes) – $18.80/item
$504 for 4 boxes with book bundle ($526.44 after taxes) – $18.80/item + $9.40/book bundle item
You save $18.81 buying 3 kits and $94.02 buying 4 kits.
Overall, this is pretty much my favorite crate. Every single thing in this crate was a hit. It is cheaper to go buy the Amazon dupes. However, I do think that it is worth it, very worth it to get this crate.
Lovevery: $144.14
Amazon Dupe: $123.83
You can watch my companion Youtube video by clicking the link below.