It’s no secret that we love a good subscription box. It’s like getting a little present from yourself every month. So when we heard about Lovevery’s subscription box for newborns to three-year-olds, our interest was piqued. We immediately had to try it out, giving boxes to parents of kids throughout the listed age ranges and asking them to give their unfiltered opinions. Is it worth the money? What do you actually get? And is it any different from the teethers and buzzing, chirping, brightly colored toys your mother-in-law sends in care packages every month?
Here’s What Real Parents (Actually) Think of Lovevery’s Subscription Boxes for Babies
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Published Aug 24, 2020
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What are the Lovevery Play Kits?
The Lovevery Play Kits are a montessori-inspired toy subscription box for babies and toddlers that arrives every two to three months. Each Play Kit contains toys created by child development experts that are specifically designed for your child’s particular learning stage.
For example, 3- to 4-month-olds are given the Charmer Play Kit, a set of 11 toys that help babies develop their motor skills, learn to make sounds and use multiple senses at once. For 13- to 16-month-olds, it’s the Babbler Play Kit, a collection of things to play with that teach concepts like object permanence, dexterity and color.
How does a Lovevery Play Kit subscription work?
It’s super easy to sign up for a Play Kit subscription. Just enter your baby or toddler’s name and birth date, and the Lovevery site will recommend which box your child should start out with based on their current developmental stage. Then, you can check out what’s inside the box and read about the skills each item teaches. From there, all that’s left to do is hit ‘subscribe now’ and enter your billing info.
The pricing and frequency of the boxes is organized into two tiers. For the Baby Play Kits, which are for 0-12-month-olds, you’ll pay $80 per box, with a new one arriving every two months. After that, your child will graduate to the Toddler Play Kits for 13-36-month-olds, which cost $120 per box and are delivered every three months.
Honestly, it sounds a little pricey but once you factor out that you’ll be spending $40 per month on educational toys for your little one, it’s a lot more reasonable. Plus, if you opt to pay upfront for five boxes, you’ll save 10 percent bringing the monthly cost down to just $36 per month.
Lovevery/Facebook
What Comes In A Lovevery Play Kit?
The contents of each stage’s box vary since they’re tailored to that age group. If you want specifics, you can head to the Play Kits page for a detailed rundown of what’s in each box. But generally, they contain anywhere from eight to 14 toys, in addition to a guidebook from Lovevery’s child development experts.
What’s it like to use a Lovevery Play Kit?
Good news: Parents aren’t expected to know which developmental skill each toy is fostering and why (phew). When a new kit arrives—every two to three months—it comes with an explanation of what each toy is designed to do, as well as a research-backed play guide that details how to play with each one with your baby. “It’s all very easy to digest and fun to follow. For the first time ever, I actually looked forward to the instructions with a package,” one reviewer told us.
Another standout feature? Durability. “The high-quality materials definitely set these toys apart from my son’s other ones. I like that most of them are made of wood,” one PureWow dad raved. (It’s worth noting that every Play Kit’s toys are made from sustainably sourced wood or 100 percent organic cotton and are compliant with ASTM F963 toy safety standards.) And that durability factor means that your child can keep playing with their favorite toys from past boxes as long as they’d like.
Multiple PureWow parents also enjoyed the interactive aspect of using the toys with their kids. “The games really got me involved and have become a fun part of our evening routine,” explains one mom.
What do reviewers have to say?
TBH, seeing the impressive 4,000-plus five-star reviews for the Play Kits is what got us interested in them in the first place. After reading a few, it was clear that Lovevery’s high-quality toys are loved by kids and parents alike.
“As a first time mom, it is amazing to have perfectly appropriate developmental toys sent right to me and my baby! I never have to wonder ‘is this toy right for his age?’, ‘will he like this?’, ‘is this toy helping him learn?’ because Lovevery takes care of all that for me,” writes one woman.
“My 15-month-old triplets ALL go for these toys before anything else in our playroom. I’m so glad I found this company! It makes me so happy to see them learning, not just pressing buttons on plastic noisemakers,” adds another.
Another thing reviewers seem to love? How Lovevery’s toys take things back to basics. “I like how they encourage play without technology,” one dad explains.
Lovevery/Facebook
Are the Lovevery Play Kits worth it?
To truly tell whether this $40 per month subscription is really worth it, you have to weigh what’s in the box—and the items’ potential benefits—against how much you typically spend on toys and learning games for your baby or toddler. By that standard, all five of the PureWow parents who tried out Lovevery agreed that the subscription box was well worth its price tag.
In fact, PureWow’s director of special projects, Rachel Bowie, was so impressed after trying out the Play Kits with her son that she wrote an entire review about the brand’s recent expansion to include boxes for children aged 24 to 36 months. She notes that the subscription is especially worth it once you consider the convenience of not having to research and purchase new toys on your own.
That said, it’s worth noting that one PureWow mom felt like she already owned a lot of the types of toys offered in the boxes for children younger than six months. “As [my daughter] gets older and the games and toys get more advanced, they seem worth the investment, especially because they’re the types of things you don’t see on every store shelf,” she reasons. So if your child is younger than six months, maybe hold off on ordering your first box for a little while.
If you prefer to make a one-time purchase (or want test out a single Lovevery product first), the brand offers a selection of Playthings that address a variety of different developmental skills. Want to work on your child’s spatial, creative and problem-soliving skills? Invest in the Block Set. Need an activity mat that she won’t outgrow in a couple of months? Try the Play Gym.
Regardless of your child’s particular needs, Lovevery has you more than covered.