When your baby reaches the age where they are more alert and curious, your world turns completely upside down. This typically happens a little after four months. They want to see everything and touch everything. They want to follow you around the house or be carried constantly. The problem is that they lack the skills to do a lot of those things. This is why the Safety 1st Walker is such a great purchase.
It can be hard to entertain a baby, especially if you have other things you have to do around the house–like everyone does. Sure, playing peekaboo has its merits, but it will likely tire you out before your baby.
There are several baby products that are so helpful during this age of life, and I have reviewed quite a few here!
However, when it comes to baby walkers there are quite a few out on the market, so what feature should you look for in a walker? Here are some of the great qualities about the Safety 1st Walker.
Adjustable
One thing that no walker should be without is the ability to adjust. This walker will hold up to 30 pounds of baby weight. That is a pretty massive amount when you consider that the average baby reaches 30 pounds at around a year and a half according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
This is probably much later than your child will be interested in it, but your baby will be growing quite a bit in the period between 5 months and 18 months. So adjusting is a must.
When you are using a walker, it is important that your baby’s legs are in a good position on the ground. You want them to be touching the ground but not bending their knees too much. This will help them learn to walk and work the leg muscles that they will need to get to that point.
Collapsable
There are a lot of other walkers on the market right now with criss cross legs that are clearly collapsable. I’m sure they are quite safe, but when I look at them, they look so flimsy, like they will collapse if something is bumped the wrong way.
One of the reasons I like the Safety 1st Walker is because it does not have the flimsy criss cross legs design feature. Instead, it has a hard plastic support on either side that you can insert in and out of the the leg hole to prop it up. This is virtually impossible for a baby to collapse by accident. However, it is easy to collapse for an adult when the baby is out of the seat.
Why Is That Important?
A collapsible walker is absolutely essential to most parents and there are a few reasons why.
Easy Storage
When you are an expecting parent, you get all dreamy picking out nursery items like cribs and rockers. However, when you get to the point where your baby is ready to use a walker, the honeymoon phase has passed a bit. The baby gear took complete control over your home and there is not one single space that remains untouched.
So, when you look at a walker, all you end up seeing is how much space it is going to take up in your house. But at least, you can collapse it down to store.
Travel Size
Another reason why the collapsing feature is so important is that babies love this kind of baby gear. Some can get quite dependent on having it to entertain them. There is a stage that babies are in where they will literally just bounce with anyone who will hold them upright. They have to work those leg muscles, and although it is super cute, it’s not something you want to spend your entire day doing.
So, it is important to be able to fit a big piece of baby gera like this into yoru trunk to go to grandmas for the day or to daycare, or wherever you are going.
Activity Tray
Another great feature about the Safety 1st Walker is that it comes with an activity tray. You can remove this tray completely, or you can remove each toy piece by piece if you don’t like certain ones.
The activity tray is one of my absolute favorite things to have in a walker, or any activity seat. In fact, I talk about activity trays at length in many of my articles about floor seats, like this one. They are so important because they will keep babies occupied for much longer than the walking feature will. It is essentially combining a walker and an activity seat in one, and any baby product that combines two different usages is one that I can get behind.
Easily Removable By An Adult
Something that is essential for me when it comes to an activity tray is that it is removable to clean underneath, but that it can only be removed by an adult. I love all the stages that my babies go through, but I’ll be honest, I don’t always enjoy the dropping game. My kids loved to take a beloved toy and drop it out of their reach and then scream until I grabbed it and gave it back.
Sure, it might teach a valuable lesson in cause and effect, but it’s not my favorite pastime.
The Safety 1st Walker has an activity tray that can be easily removed by an adult, but a child will have a really hard time figuring it out, and will probably not have the strength to do it.
Snack Tray
The base underneath the activity tray can also be used for snacks or for when your baby just doesn’t need the stimulation of the toys in front of his or her face.
This bottom tray is just as important as the toy tray in my mind. I have kids who are entertained by toys and I have kids who are more entertained by food than anything else. So having options is a great feature.
Music
I love it when a baby product includes music in it. My husband starts going crazy hearing the same songs over an over, but I actually don’t mind it. I love that my kids start to understand cause and effect when they push a button and it makes noise. It is thrilling for them. It also gives them a bit of control in their lives, which is very unique for a baby.
Also, the Safety 1st Walker doesn’t come with one song that loops on repeat all day long. It has 12 songs that it will go through, so it doesn’t get too boring.
Toys
There are several different models of the Safety 1st Walker available. Each of them has a different activity bar. You can pick whichever model suits your style or color scheme. They all have different toys, but they all have the music button with the same songs.
You can check out how babies use the toys here:
Easy to Clean
After functionality, parents want to know how easy the product is to clean. If you’re already a parent, you already know that babies make huge messes from day one. And the messes just get more extensive as your baby grows. If your baby is going to be snacking in this baby product, it had better be easy to clean.
Thankfully, the Safety 1st Walker is very easy and convenient to clean. The toys can be completely removed and washed. You can clean the tray underneath with a damp cloth and occasionally use a multi surface cleaner.
There are some baby products out there that have fabric inserts that you cannot remove. This is very frustrating, but it isn’t the case with the Safety 1st Walker. You can remove the padded insert and machine wash it in your standard washer.
Rolls
As with most walkers, there are wheels on the bottom of the Safety 1st Walker. This will allow it to move smoothly along most surfaces. Your baby shouldn’t have any trouble at all moving it on tile, wood, or linoleum surfaces once he or she has the leg muscles to move that much.
If your baby is so small that he or she cannot yet reach the floor with their feet, then you can check if the walker is on the lowest setting and adjust accordingly. Once your baby can put their flat foot on the ground, they should be able to move the walker.
One thing that some people mentioned is that the walker can have a difficult time on high piled carpet. If your carpet has particularly long fibers or is very thick, it could be difficult for your baby to roll the walker. However, in most cases, the Safety 1st Walker should move smoothly.
Safety Feature
One thing that I love about the Safety 1st Walker is that it is true to its name and safety really does come first.
Many parents are worried about walkers because there have been accidents in the past with babies falling down stairs. While I would say that you should be extra vigilant when your baby is in a walker to make sure that all baby gates are closed or that they are on the bottom floor, accidents do happen.
Sometimes siblings will leave a gate open. Things happen.
However, Safety 1st came up with a great design for their walker. There is a stilt on the bottom of the walker on either side of the wheels. So if one wheel were to come off the edge of something like a stair, the stilts, in theory, would catch it and prevent it from tipping the rest of the way down.
Though parents should still be as careful as possible, this feature could put many parents at ease if they were concerned about buying a walker for their baby.
Cons
There are a couple cons with this baby walker, though none of them seem to be a huge deal, and most consumers are very happy with their product.
Carpet
As mentioned earlier, thick rugs may not be easy for your baby to roll on in the Safety 1st walker. However, this would be an issue with any brand walker.
If you are considering buying a walker, take a look around your home first and consider if your baby would be able to walk freely in most of the common areas.
Toys
There are some complaints about the figure 8 rattle that is a part of the toy bar on the Safety 1st Walker. Some parents have claimed that their baby’s fingers would get stuck in this toy. Though this problem is not one isolated event, it is not something that happens to all babies across the board. It also is not life threatening. It will not feel good for your baby, but if you observe your baby playing with it and there is no problem, you might not have to worry too much about this issue.
You also can easily remove each toy individually. So if you don’t want to even take the chance of your baby having problems with this toy, then just remove it from the bar. There are plenty of other toy options on the bar that will keep your baby occupied and entertained.
Conclusion
Overall, the Safety 1st Walker is a very high quality baby product. It has all the features that I personally look for in a walker. These are, namely, collapsible, easy to clean, safe, and several more features that are also great! This walker not only helps your baby build the muscles that he or she will need to walk eventually, but it provides a safe and entertaining space for your baby to enjoy during his or her active hours. And every parent is grateful for baby products that keep their babies happy.