Chicco Baby Steps Activity Walker

I bought this for my 7 month old little boy, even though he's nowhere near using it as a walker I wanted something that would encourage him to practice sitting, as he's so keen to be on the move he doesn't really get practice sitting for long because as soon as he's on the floor he's off trying to crawl.

I chose this one over other similar things because it looked sturdy, had good reviews and I have been very happy with a highchair from chicco.

This is perfect, and he absolutely loves it. Even at 7 months he is gets the idea of the ball going in the hole at the top and he loves all the sounds and lights, especially the two side bits. He will pull the musical side tab and when it stops pull it again straight away to start it again.

It is very well built as I expected from chicco and it feels very sturdy, I don't have any concerns about it tipping when he does reach the stage of pulling himself up and walking with it.

I like the fact that it has brakes and that it doesn't go 'backwards', only forwards.

The only downsides (and they are minor) are:

when he is sitting in front of it playing with the activity part, it is quite easy for him to pull it down ontop of him, but that has been easily rectified by either wedging the stabalisers under the sofa or other such thing, or by placing my feet on the stabilisers, since we don't leave him to play unsupervised anyway this really isn't a big issue and if he was older, (like the suggested 9 months) it may not be an issue at all.

It would be great if there was some way it could fold down for storage.

Other than those two things, which are minor, I really can't rate this high enough and the enjoyment my little boy gets from it, and will continue to get from it for months to come is more than worth it.

My little boy walked with this much earlier than with every thing else we tried. He was able to do it at 6 months. The benefits are that it's much more stable and has much more friction than any of the others - eg VTEc. Also, he tends to walk very bow-legged, and the wheels are set wide enough so he doesn't kick them. The handle is exactly at the right height and angle for little hands too. The best thing is the 'brakes' on the wheels. They have just enough friction to control the speed, and slow or prevent falls. With other walkers, he would lean forward or back and they would either slide away from him, or topple over onto him. This product saved my back!

I bought this toy for my then 9 month old twins. Both of them started out playing with the shapes, balls & music parts, then they started to walk with it. My twins are now almost 18 months old and, although they can both walk, they still love running around with it and putting the shapes in. The downside is that the music stopped playing when they push it around but apart from that, it's working fine and is a durable & transportable toy!