Baby Toys and Timers: My New Pet Peeve
A few of the items my wife and I have purchased for our son are equipped with certain capabilities to “soothe” a baby. These are things like vibrating, sound effects, motorized characters and lights, etc. For instance, we purchased the Fisher Price Soothing Massage Bouncer, which comes equipped with vibrations, various music and sound effects, and a back massager. We love it, and more importantly, our son does too.
But we have one problem with it.
Like so many other battery operated toys for infants, the features of this seat operate on a timer. After about 8 minutes, the music and massager shut themselves off. This typically results in our son waking from the slumber he had previously been lulled into by those very mechanisms, not a good thing.
And I know we are not the only ones disappointed by this. We’ve met more than a few other parents frustrated by having to run back to their child’s bouncy seat, or crib, or bassinet and restart whatever it was that had been so effective at keeping their child quiet, at least for a little while.
I do understand that the timing mechanisms are there to preserve battery life, and in some cases, for safety measures, but what I don’t understand is why the makers of these products can’t add a simple mechanism allowing the parent to set the damn timer themselves. I mean come on people, just give me a choice, something like 10, 20 or 30 minutes, it’s not that hard.
To be fair, some manufacturers get this right. We have a Graco Baby Swing that allows me to choose from multiple timer settings.
Am I asking too much?