BK Recommends

As anyone with kids will attest, you can never have enough batteries. Before the girls were even born, we had amassed quite a collection of gifts that required batteries. Not only toys, but the swing, the bouncer, the pack n' play, etc. I don't know about you guys, but I often wondered who the heck is still using C and D batteries as most things use AA or AAA. Well folks, as it turns out, it's all the baby stuff that uses the entire spectrum of batteries. We suddenly had a need for everything from AAA to D sized batteries.

Looking at all the stuff we had that needed batteries, I thought it could get quite expensive as we continue to replace them when they died. So I decided early on we were going to use rechargeable battteries. The only caveat there, is I didn't want to use the rechargeable batteries you see in most stores. As it turns out, those don't hold that much juice, and die pretty quickly. I wanted the best rechargeable I could find that would last as long as possible between charges. I came across the Tenergy brand high capacity NiMH battery. While they are way more expensive than regular batteries, they'll easily pay for themselves after a few recharges.

It's true that non-rechargeables will last longer than rechargeables, even these high capacity Tenergy batteries... but, in the long run, you will have spent a lot less on batteries. We've been going for over a year now using these Tenergy batteries, and I couldn't be happier. I have a charger that can charge up to four batteries at a time, as well as some extra batteries in every size, so no toy or device goes without a battery for more than the time it takes to replace them.

I highly recommend using rechargeable high capacity NiMH batteries if you're looking to save money in the long run. Now that I have all these rechargeables, we end up using them in non-baby stuff too... remotes, flashlights, Swiffer WetJets, etc. The batteries are definitely paying for themselves. If you're making the switch to high capacity rechargeables, be sure to invest in a good charger as well (they're not very expensive). One that has a "decharge" function, so you can drain a battery fully before recharging it. That can help to lengthen the life of the battery.

The Fisher Price Laugh & Learn™ Stride-to-Ride Learning Walker™ is another product that's served us well for a long time. We introduced it to the girls around 8 or 9 months of age. It functions as both a car you can sit on and a walker. It was a fantastic tool in helping the girls learn to walk.

In "walker" mode, the seat spreads apart, so you can hold on to the yellow bar, and walk behind it. You can also put the seat back together, and sit on it and push the car along with your feet. For the first few months that they played with the car, we kept the seat apart to help the girls learn to walk. The girls quickly learned to walk using the car, and loved walking with it.

These days we leave the seat together, so they can sit on it, although I think they more enjoy just picking the car up and tossing it around like they're the Hulk or something. They do like being pushed around on it, though.

Aside from the main objective of the walker (aiding your child in learning to walk), it also teaches with sounds and music. As with most of the Laugh & Learn series, the toy has a "music" mode and an "ABC" mode (as it's labeled). In music mode, pushing the various buttons causes music to be played, while in ABC mode, a voice tells you what it is you're pushing or turning. When turning the key, for example, it will say "On" or "Off" depending on which way you turn the key.

All in all, we love this toy and are very happy with it. Below is a video I've posted before of the girls learning to walk with it, so you can see it in action. I guess this is kind of a video review


The Girls learn to walk with the Stride-to-Ride

The Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Learning Puppy
is a toy we had come upon during our research before the girls were even born. It was highly rated everywhere we looked, and so we decided we wanted the girls to have it. We put it on our registry at the time, and were lucky enough to receive it from a friend at Kris' shower.

We started showing the girls the puppy at a pretty early age, maybe as young as a couple months old. At the time, the puppy was probably twice the size of the girls! As the girls grew and learned to pick things up, they enjoyed playing with the puppy more and more, although it wasn't until fairly recently (maybe a couple months ago) that the girls really started to love it. Karina oftentimes will clutch him so tightly in a hug, there's no getting it away from her.

Essentially, the puppy has many buttons hidden in various locations that you can push to hear songs, words, and other sounds. For example, you can push on the puppy's hands or feet and hear it sing a song, or tell you what you just pushed, "Foot!". You can push on it's tummy, and puppy might say "Hahaha That tickles!".

Puppy's made very well, and doesn't feel 'cheap'. It's made so well, in fact, that in over a year of use puppy still looks brand new. Also, in the year or so we've been using puppy, we've only had to replace the batteries once, I think. In the world of baby toy batteries, that's AMAZING!

It's rare that something is useful from the time of birth to a year in age, but the puppy has stood the test of time so far and is still a beloved toy in the Shah household. We're very happy we got the puppy and hope our real puppy doesn't chew it up one day haha!

In general, we are huge fans of the Laugh and Learn series of toys from Fisher-Price. Every Laugh and Learn toy we have is one the girls really love. You will surely see more Laugh and Learn products recommended here in the coming weeks.

In a new segment I'm going to call 'BK Recommends' (I'll leave it to you to figure out what the BK means), I'm going to discuss baby items Kris and I have used (or still use) that we really liked. The hope is to share information with other parents who might be reading this site with recommendations that have greatly helped us. I will try and post about a new item every so often, and please feel free to leave comments about that particular item if you have your own thoughts. Kris and I have plenty of friends with kids, and a few who are just becoming new parents, so hopefully our experiences can be helpful to those just starting out.

Disclaimer: I am by no means trying to claim that we're experts at parenting. I just want to share our experiences with various products, and hopefully hear about other people's experiences with those products, if they have them.

The first item I'll talk about is the book Baby Bargains. This book should be on every expectant parent's list of things to buy. This was one of the first things Kris and I bought, which helped us in making purchasing decisions on virtually every other baby item we've bought.

Not only does the book provide plenty of ways to save money, it gives great recommendations on every type of baby product you could imagine. It tells you what products to stay away from, products that are more hype than they're worth, products that you absolutely need, etc. We used the book as a reference well before the girls were born up to many months after they were born for everything from cribs to bottles to toys.

I can't say enough wonderful things about this book, and truly believe it's a must have for parents. The authors release an updated edition of the book every year. The book linked here is the latest edition of the book currently available (7th edition), but the newest edition (8th edition for '09) will be available in April.