Fisher-Price Infant to Toddler Swing review
The Fisher-Price Infant to Toddler Swing does just about everything right. You can go and read the 450 customer reviews on Amazon where it maintains a 4.5 star rating if you want to hear about that though, I’m going to tell you all the problems with it and then tell you to get it anyway because none of them really matter that much.
Base rope width may be incorrect for larger kid swings
The width of the ropes where they come out of the chair and the width of your average swingset are about six inches off.
What this means is the ropes will go up at a slightly askew angle if fitted to a normal swing. Ropes going at an angle are annoying because if you’re pushing the baby via the rope (since they’re so freaking low to the ground,) you’ll misjudge plenty of times what you’re attempting to push.
Not a huge issue, seems many baby swings have the same issue. Biggest complaint is it makes it hard to wind them up and let them spin out.
Tray can be hard to remove with infant fighting you
Maggie loves to swing until she doesn’t. She doesn’t quite comprehend that when I tell her I’m taking her out that I’m actually going to take her out of the swing and that she should quit her fussing.
One of her fussing or just playful behaviors in the Fisher-Price Infant to Toddler Swing is to grab the tray and push it down. The tray requires an adult use two hands to simultaneously release two plastic latches, push up slightly from the latch area, then remove the tray from up-top.
One well-placed baby attack will re-lock the tray in the safety position. If you’re dealing with a rambunctious baby, unlocking might require baby restraints.
You do not want to mix rope and chain segments
This applies to any swing, I’m just mentioning it because there’s really vew few important things to note about this. Chain + rope = a swing that will shake due to differing weight of baby transport mediums.
Basically the chain weighs a lot more than the rope and will proceed in it’s fashion.
So don’t be fooled by the metal S-hooks. You mount them in the base, not as an extension unless you know the weights and will duct-tape the S-hook closed.
It’s possible to tip
So this sort of goes with the base rope sizing being incorrect for larger kid swings and evidently is the cause is most of the 29 negative reviews on Amazon. If the ropes aren’t affixed at the proper width the rear of the seat can raise enough that a chunkier kiddo can flip it.
I think this is mostly an end-user error, it hasn’t happened with us and I’ve tried, but I can see how mounting could really mess this up. On the off chance it’s all larger kids, just mentioning it.
So if you’re unable to mount with the ropes going straight up, be aware that a couple of inch difference on either side could give your child the ability to flip forward.
Wrap-up
This is one of the few baby toys I just like. It’s simple, I don’t think they could do too much better and cover the age range they do (6-36mo.) and the price doesn’t feel like I’m being gouged just because it has the word “infant” in it.
It needs to be installed correctly, which is the case with any child swing. It might be a little small if your baby’s a chunker. Depending on the infant this might not be for you.
For us, it seems to be great and we like it.
The Fisher-Price Infant to Toddler Swing is available from Amazon for $24.98, which I believe is what we paid for it at the store.
