Play wonder kitchen good for long term?

[joyelyse]

I know that Target has their play wonder kitchen on sale right now. My DD loves it at her friend’s, but I was thinking of the Melissa and Doug Kitchen fro her second birthday gift. DH likes the Target price. My question is, how long will she play with the PW kitchen? Will a different kitchen last longer for us?

Thanks!!!

[cstack]

I can't speak to the Target play food, but the price is nice. We had the Melissa and Doug sets and I really liked them. They held up nicely to a lot of rough play. If you use an AC Moore 40% coupon, the prices aren't too bad, and I've found sets at TJ Maxx for $10 - $15. I also got one at Ollie's Bargain outlet for $5 because it was a cutting set - the knife was there, but the cutting board and something else small was missing.

[sarahsthreads]

We have the play wonder kitchen. I got it for DD at 21 months or so, and six months later it's still something that gets a lot of daily playtime. Every child who comes to our house (so far as old as 7) plays with it most of the time they're visiting.

DD has quite the imagination, so the sink becomes a bathtub for her babies, or she'll take the bowl out of the sink and the hole becomes a trash can. The oven doubles as a washing machine, and the refrigerator is sometimes a dog house. Despite all that, she does frequently use it as an actual kitchen, and uses the kid-sized oven mitts to open the oven door and take out a pan of food, etc.

The only "problem" we've had with it after six months of hard play is that the handle for the sink broke off. It could be fixed easily with some wood glue, we just haven't done it yet.

I wish I could have gotten it for $50, but it's certainly been worth $80 to us, and I expect we'll use it for a long, long time.

Sarah :)

[joyelyse]

Thanks! That is _very_ helpful. (Especailly the part about the older kids playing with it, as I've only seen toddlers under 2 around it.) We did find it for $50 today, so we went ahead and bought it. I figure that if for some reason we decide that she "needs" LOL something more when she's older, we can always trade up. For right now, $50 is a lot more doable than $200.

Joy