Learning Tower Questions

[christymc33]

Ok, I need to stop looking at Craigslist! I found a learning tower for $50.00. I did not even know what they were until these boards. Should I get it if we are not in the kitchen that much except for weekends? DD is 7.5 months, which would mean I would need to store it in the garage for around a year right? Have you loved having one, would you recommend it?
Thanks so much...

[ellies mom]

I'd get it in a heartbeat. I want one so badly, and I just cannot get DH to understand why it worth getting.

[Dcclerk]

Right now. In fact, I hope it isn't too late. We use ours literally every day, a couple of times a day and I am a WOHM. DS loves it. He helps me "cook" everything from eggs to smoothies. He also loves to wash dishes and helps me most nights. He sometimes eats a snack on the tower, uses it to turn on lights, "hides" in it. Honestly, it was one of our all-time best purchases. DH was really annoyed that I bought such a huge item when we don't have a huge house, but even he has to admit that it was a really good purchase. Get it now :)

[brittone2]

ITA. I'll be an enabler LOL...get it :) $50 is a great deal...you could pick it up and not have it shipped...great deal.

We love ours. We started using it with DS when he was around 16 months I think but may have been able to use it a bit sooner (we moved so I didn't unpack it until after the move). We assembled it when I first got it (when he was about 12-13 months and he kept trying to sit down in it, so it was too early...we disassembled and put it away for a while longer).

DH is currently working long hours and the tower is the only thing that lets me get dinner cooked as DS likes to be held at that time of day. He loves to wash dishes in the sink, watch me cook, "clean" my counters with a rag, whatever...and I can see it being useful for quite some time!!

We have a smallish kitchen but have two walk in pantries, so that is a convenient place to store it. DS walks to the pantry we keep it in and says "Towah, Towah!!!" when he wants me to bring it out :)

Expensive, yes, but solidly built and useful for many many things for a number of years and hopefully for any future kids as well. We don't regret it one bit. I also have a DH that occasionally gets annoyed when he sees the prices of these things but then he always ends up happy we made the purchase in the long run :)

Buy it :)

[zuzu]

I'd get it! If you decide you don't want it, I'm sure you could resell it. I got a used one for a steal about a year ago, and love it so much that we would have paid full price.

We have a kitchen with a large counter that opens into our family room/play area, so we're in that part of the house a lot. We're not home during the day, but it gets used every evening and during the days on weekends for drawing and other art projects, snacks, and helping us in the kitchen.

Melissa, mom to Sarah (5/03)

[mommyj_2]

Another Tower lover here. Get it. $50 is a great price. My DS has been using his every day for months (he's 2). He washes dishes, chops food, helps me stir, and scoops batter into the muffin pan. He also eats in his tower when he doesn't want to sit at the table. Before we got our LT, he used to stand at my legs and cry when I cooked, but the LT has allowed him to participate in our cooking/cleaning in the kitchen.
This is one of the best purchases we ever made. I know some other moms use stepping stools, but my DS is a little monkey, and that would have been a disaster for us. I love the stability of the LT.

[christymc33]

Thank you everyone! We went and picked it up tonight. I actually thought it was going to be even bigger. It will fit just fine in the garage for a while. I am really glad all of you responded to my post, and I was able to grab it fast enough!!
DD is 7.5 months and I stood her inside and held onto her hands and we played peek a boo under and over the top part of the wood. She had a blast. Can't wait until we can really use it. I assume around a year from now.

Thanks again!!
:-)

[713abc]

I have to say that our Learning Tower is the absolute best thing we've ever gotten for our son. From the time he got it (a few months ago, when he turned 2) he has eaten 99% of his meals while standing in the tower (that's just evenings and weekends, we are all out of the house at work/school during the day). He eats at the counter if we're not eating with him, or we just move the tower over to the kitchen table when we all eat together. Even though the table is far lower than a coutertop, it still works for him.

He is the typical toddler, hard to keep still, hard to sit down for any length of time. He'd much rather stand and eat than sit.

We also have a Kinderzeat, which we got just about a month before the tower (luckily both tower and kinderzeat were purchased by grandparents as b-day gifts), but he was never very interested in sitting there. He'd rather sit in one of our big chairs than the Kinderzeat...but it all worked out, because I like sitting in the Kinderzeat!

Besides using the tower for eating, he also uses it to see what we're doing on the stove or coutertop. Before the tower he'd always want "uppy", now we just say "get in your tower and I'll show you". He can easily climb in and out (which we try to limit when he's eating but are not very strict about it).

Mom to Max, 5/28/03