TOYS: Rub a Dub Stickers for the Tub: Beep Beep! by Alex (Sammy Bear Pick)

Pros: Bright, fun colors; good variety of stickers; makes bathtime fun for SB; easy cleanup; comes with a mesh storage bag that can be suctioned to the bathtub.
Cons: None.

I bought these Rub a Dub foam "stickers" for SB recently, as I was looking for something to make bathtime extra fun for him. He had fallen out of love with baths for some reason and would wail as soon as I turned on the bath faucet. He has some bath squirt toys (rubber ducky, fish, whale, etc.) that he used to love playing with, but they no longer were enough to make him happy about bathtime. I was reluctant to buy new squirt toys for him, because I have found that squirters tend to get mildewy inside if you don't get every last drop of water out of them after bathtime (especially in our humid FL climate). On too many occasions has SB squirted out mildewy water into the tub. Not my idea of getting clean.

So I started looking for some alternatives to squirt toys - preferably ones that involve cars, trucks, etc., since SB loooves anything that goes "vroom" - and I came across these Beep Beep foam bath stickers. If your little one is not into cars, there are a variety of Rub a Dub bath sticker sets to choose from, including ABC letters, farm animals, an ocean theme, numbers and shapes, a garden theme, and more.

The set of Beep Beep stickers contains 27 foam pieces that include cars, buses, trains, motorcycles, planes, traffic lights, signs, and interconnecting roadways. They are very bright and colorful, and the colors would appeal to either boys or girls, in my opinion. The pieces float in the water, and when they are wet, they stick to the bathtub or wall. They don't have any adhesives, so they're not stickers in the traditional sense. They're just made of foam. They come with a mesh storage bag, which makes for easy cleanup and drying. The bag has two suction cups that can stick to your bathtub or wall, so you can hang it up easily. So far I've had no mildew issues with these foam pieces, which makes me very happy.

So did they succeed in getting SB to fall back in love with bathtime? The answer, happily, is "yes!" I showed the stickers to SB before his bathtime, and he immediately wanted to play with them. Although he still protested a little bit initially when I put him in his bath, it only took a couple of days before he started smiling again when I announced, "Bathtime!" In fact, now he doesn't even want to get out of the tub, because he enjoys playing with the stickers so much. There are so many stickers in the set that I've only given him about half of them to play with. The other half I'll save for if/when he gets tired of the current ones. He loves to take them out of the bag and stick them all up on the wall while saying "vroom vroom vroom."

The maker of these foam stickers, Alex, lists the recommended age for this product as 2+ years, but I think they're fine for 1+ years (SB is 15 months). Foam toys typically are described as choking hazards for kids under 3, but since these are for bath use and I assume that a parent is always supervising the child in the tub, there should be little risk of your little one biting off a piece and then swallowing it. The Beep Beep stickers are quite durable, and none of the individual pieces are small enough to be swallowed whole.

Retail Price: $13.99 on the Alex site (available for $11.99 at Target online and in stores, $14.20 at Amazon.com [eligible for Free Super Saver shipping])
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TOYS: Shake, Rattle & Drum (Sammy Bear Pick)

Pros: Sturdy wood construction, drum has real rawhide drum head (not plastic), nice variety of instruments for drumming and shaking.
Cons: The drum and tambourine stick make quite a bit of noise.

This percussion set was our one and only birthday present to SB, and I like to think it's his favorite :) Actually, he really does like it a lot, since two of his favorite activities of the moment are to bang on things and to shake things that make noise.

I chose this set after doing some online research on music toys that SB could bang on that were sturdy (i.e., not made of cheap plastic) and that preferably included a drum and maracas. I initially was going to go for a Melissa & Doug Band in a Box set that included a tambourine (but no drum) and maracas, as I had heard good things about Melissa & Doug toys. But after reading the reviews on Amazon, I decided against it. More than one person commented that their kid broke the tambourine within hours of playing with it, because the cover is made of flimsy material - something like thick paper. So that was that.

Then, I considered a wooden toy drum made by Plan Toys, a company known for making good-quality wood toys in an environmentally responsible way. But after some thought, it didn't seem worth it to pay $19 (or close to it) for a solitary toy drum that comes with only one drumstick.

Next, I considered the Bee Bop Band Music Toy Set by Parents Magazine, because it comes with a whole bunch of toy instruments with a cute bug theme: a caterpillar tambourine, ant jingle bells, a ladybug xylophone, a bee maraca/clacker, and centipede drumsticks for the plastic drum that doubles as a container for all the instruments. Unfortunately, my main interest was in the drum, and several reviews that I read said that the drum's top and bottom are made of flimsy plastic and tore after some use. One mom wrote that her son happily got a year's worth of use out of the drum, but shouldn't toys last through more than 1 year of use?? I do want to note, though, that almost all of the reviews I read on this product stated that their child was very happy with this set, so if you don't care so much about the plastic drum, then this could be a good purchase for you.

SB can be a bit rough with his toys, so I do care about the drum being sturdy. That's why I ended up going up with the Shake, Rattle & Drum set shown above, made by Sounds Like Fun. As you can see from the photo, the drum comes with 2 maracas, a tambourine stick, and a handled castanet. The set is well made, with the main parts being made of wood. The tambourine stick has real metal cymbals, and the drum has a natural rawhide drum head. Really durable stuff, so perfect for SB! The drum has a short rope handle, so you can turn it upside down and use it as a bucket to store the other instruments when not in use. I know that a lot of parents are concerned about the noise factor when it comes to toy instruments, and I have to say that the tambourine stick is pretty loud (which can be a bit annoying), but the drum has a good, resounding sound that I don't find unpleasant. The maracas are very mild in terms of noise level, and the castanet makes a clacking sound that kind of sounds like hands clapping. All in all, you will definitely get a bit of noise with this set, but in my opinion, it's not too bad, and for me, it's worth it for the fun that SB gets out of it.

And let me tell you, SB really loves to bang on that drum with the drumsticks and with his hands. (He also occasionally likes to use the drumsticks to bang on other things in his playroom, but overall, he's been pretty good about sticking to the drum itself). Ever since I've been reading him the book, Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins, which is his favorite book, I've wanted to get a toy drum for him. (In case you're not familiar with this book, it's about monkeys that like to drum on drums. Very cute! See my blog post on it.) Now, I can read him the book and drum on the drum to illustrate what the monkeys are doing. He's really gotten into the other instruments, too. What can be better than shaking things that make noise (besides drumming on a drum, of course)? Recently, SB, his dad, and I had a grand ole time playing the instruments together, with his dad on drums, SB on tambourine, and me on maracas. We made a great percussion band.

I should note that the recommended age level for this set is 3 years+, but I personally think it's appropriate for kids 1 year+. There's nothing in the set that is a choking hazard, and as long as your child likes banging on or shaking things that make noise, then I don't see why s/he wouldn't enjoy this. SB certainly does!

Retail price: $39.99 (can be purchased for $35.99 at sites like Oompa Toys and Amazon)

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