Review by Brooke at Creating Comfort
In our family, we have an obsession with Back to the Future. In the movie, Marty Mcfly sees his uncle as an infant inside a crib, and referencing his future in prison says “Get used to those bars!” Since then we have called all play pens and cribs THE JAIL.
I have borrowed a play pen / JAIL before when I was travelling. I found it really hard to set up, which was frustrating for me in an already frustrating time. I also was a little grossed out about the mattress pad and its inability to wash it. Not that my friends and family weren’t cleanly, but when you are traveling, who has time to scrub it down? Babies (at least mine) puke all over the place!
Another thing that bothered me was that it was so far down to the ground to bend and pick up the babies in the middle of the night. Lazy, I know, but it bugged me a bit.
The Ingenuity EasyWash Playard had me intrigued at the word washable. I was a little nervous about how to set it up, but I literally set it up in 2 minutes with no instructions. There is also a bassinet / higher level that is already set up when you take it out of the box. This makes it easy to take off and then reinstall because you can see exactly how it puts together. This is best for little babies, a short reach at 3 am.
My three year old proceeded to call it his tent, draping blankets all over it. He played inside for hours! This is heaven to a mom.
When it came time to take it down, I tried to just wing it like I did with the set up, and I got a bit frustrated in that it didn’t collapse all the way together. I pulled out the instruction book and 30 seconds later it was fixed. It doesn’t assemble any different than any other play pen, I have just never had one before so it was new to me.
All in all, the fabrics are adorable; the washability makes it the only play pen I will ever use again. Now that I have one, and know how to set it up, I take it with me everywhere, looking for excuses to use it. I’ve taken it to the lake, so my babies have a shady place to play (much easier than hauling the umbrella). I’ve set it up in the basement on these hot summer nights for them to have a cool place to sleep. Visitors have used it for their kids naps, and it’s come with us to Grandma’s house too!
You can buy the InGenuity Washable Playard at Toys R Us stores across Canada and online for $189.99
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