When Dexie was first born, people would be forgiven for thinking we’d left him at the hospital if they popped around to visit. He was so quiet, his toys were confined to his nursery, and our flat was spotless. Move on a few months and our home looks like The House of Tiny Tearaways. Now there are miniscule socks stuffed down the sides of our sofa, toys strewn around with reckless abandon, and bottle paraphernalia everywhere. To top it all off, our gorgeous little man has discovered the joys of cupboards, emptying Kleenex boxes (and eating some of the contents…), and emptying bookcases. In fact, the only way to keep a room tidy is to roll him in bubble wrap!
Having resigned myself to the fact our lounge was to be a permanent homage to messy play, I was about to give up on finding a solution when a friend forwarded me an intriguing press release for Tidy Time.
“At last the answer to toys in the lounge!… One look and you will be asking “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?”…”
So just what is it? Well here is the genius product in action!
It’s a soft cube that houses all your childs toys when they’re not in use, yet also opens up as an activity mat for playtime! As you can see from above, you can open various side panels out so your baby is partially enclosed, or flat out so baby has a soft play area for wooden floors. When Dex is finished eating Dino Dan’s face, attempting thrash metal on his Leapfrog Learn & Groove xylophone, and creating train crashes worthy of a spot on BBC News with Thomas and Friends, you can sweep them all into the centre of the mat and neatly and discreetly stow them away - genius!
But this cube isn’t just for the lounge, it’s also ideal for the garden and park picnics. If your child is anything like Dexie and prefers grass to ice cream, then the activity mat makes for a safe play zone between child and nature. We’ve taken ours in the garden several times now and it works a treat to stop Dex from recreating one of his infamous misadventures. He loves pulling all his toys out of the Tidy Time and opening up the mat himself. This is just perfect for us as a family as I prefer not to have Dexie on the decking because of all the pot plants. It’s a great way of having him play out in the garden with us without me having to wrestle seedlings out of his vice-like grip, or worry about him attempting to push his toddle truck off the decking.
In terms of packing away, you simply fold the corners inwards where they are secured by poppers. Due to the fact you are effectively fortifying the side panels by folding, when all the toys are safely inside it keeps its shape incredibly well. You then simply pop the lid on the top and thread through the ties to keep it in place. You can choose from a variety of fabrics for both the interior and exterior of the cube - or have it customised to fit in with your own sofas. It would be great to see some more muted, plain and contemporary fabrics on the website - I suspect these will follow as demand grows.
Transporting the Tidy Time is easy - there’s no bending over, you just grab ahold of the ties and take it from room to room, house to house, car to home. As Dexter often goes around to his Gran’s to give me a break - The Tidy Time rides alongside him on the passenger seat to save me having to pop things in a carrier bag. When he comes home, there’s no unpacking, I just pop it at the side of the sofa until the morning.
In the same vein, it’s ideal for grandparents, childminders and hands-on aunties and uncles as it’s a discreet way of storing toys when the littlies go home - you go can from play time to lounge in a matter of seconds as and when needed. There’s also talk on the website of upcoming accessories including activity arches and coordinating tummy time cushions… keep an eye on the website for more on this.
Price depends on size. The standard Tidy Time activity mat is approximately 90cm squared when flat, and 30cm cubed when closed (trust me when I say it holds a very generous amount of toys!) - this works out at £39.95 if you choose a fabric from the website (with £6.99 delivery). As a fully transportable alternative to a wooden toy chest, it gets the thumbs up from us!
Head on over to http://www.tidytime.co.uk/ for more information!
DISCLAIMER: We received our Tidy Time free of charge for review purposes. All pics and opinions are mine.
Love it, but we would need one 6 foot squared to cope with the mess generated by our two boys!
It’s great hey? Dexter loves fishing around in his - keeps him from emptying hs change bag and eaing his Sudocrem!
Send use the material and we can do that size to order!
That’s so tidy and neat, top idea. I did have one many moons ago with had poppers and was meant to pull up like that, but it never really worked
I wasn’t sure how sturdy this one would be either - but the design is really impressive. Mine doesn’t slouch or anything. There are some really clever people out there who have an idea and really push to see it come into being. The design master behind this is a nana who had wooden floors and wanted a safe play area for her grandchildren. She’s come up trumps I reckon!
These look really practical.