With my second baby about to hit 6 months I can say I’ve been around the block (at least once) when it comes to baby toys. Below are my must-have toys for babies 0-6 months, along with a comparison of Lovevery’s box kits. With my first child, we had a Loveevery subscription, which I can get my complete honest, unsolicited recommendation for, at least for the first year. We very much enjoyed it, and I gifted 9 months of kits for my brother when his first was born.
But by the time my daughter had reached one, we found the house to be getting a little too cluttered and not all of the toys that much enjoyed, so the subscription was canceled. With this post series I’m summarizing my experience with the toys – if Amazon links are included, please note that these are affiliate links, meaning that if you end up purchasing an item I get reimbursed a small amount.
“The Looker” Playkit
So if you were to ask me which kit I would skip, The Looker would be the one. Babies can’t do much of anything before three months, old, so the basic concept their marketing on here is the high contrast visuals – this includes the mittens, the placards, the rattler, and the wood story book. And it’s a good concept to market on, but it’s overdone here, and you can easily achieve it with some dupes on Amazon. As I had the entire kid from birth to 15 months, I did not get any dupes myself, and we still have leftover flashcards. But below each individual item in the kit are some similar ones you can choose for a replacement.
Skip the Black & White Mittens entirely. If you’re worried about scratching, it’s better to file or trim your baby’s nails anyway and if you’re anything like me the thought of smooshing a tiny baby hand into a stiff glove will give you anxiety. Despite trying to use them with kid 2, after a few feeble attempts they returned to a storage tote, and there they stayed.
Verdict: Leave It
As for the mobile, we never had a place for it, as he never had a single, stationary “changing table.” Rather we had a plastic pin with some diapers, wipes, and diaper cream, and had three or four of these scattered strategically around the house to chance the baby on the floor.
Verdict: Leave It
The Sensory… Thing? (Sensory Links) wasn’t included in the kits when I got them with my first, so I can’t comment, but its a nice addition and future-proofs that first box just a little. My daughter had instead of this a Crate and Barrell caterpillar gifted to her from my aunt and she LOVED that thing. My son… not as much.
Verdict: Love It
Moving on to the main attraction/selling point of the first kit, the Black and White flashcards, Rattler, and Wooden “Book.” Yes, babies love high contrast visuals, and the flashcards are great to stick on the walls, above a changing station, inside the pack and play, wherever. Yes, these are kind of aesthetically pleasing and you could probably get away with taping up one in a museum of modern art and there it would stay, mistaken for a curated piece… But this isn’t worth the 80 dollars fam.
Verdict: “Love It,” but you can do cheaper
A brief Amazon search lead me to this adorable alternative ($11.47 at the time this post is published), which I haven’t tried myself, but if I were to recreate the kit this is what I’d choose: →
As for book alternatives, I would go with Black Cat White Cat ($7.99) at the time of this post.
And there you have it. Briefly, I like the Lovevery subscription for the first year, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the first box, though is did have good ideas. Did you love this playkit? Do you think it was worth the 80 dollars?
Med-Derm, MD 
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