Are toddler towers worth the money/safe??

[sha160528]

Hi,

My DD has just turned 18 months and I was considering getting a toddler tower to help her feel more involved when I’m in the kitchen.

I wanted to know if other people’s experiences of toddler towers. I do have some reservations as to whether they’re fully safe though as I worry that she could still fall?

Are they worth the money?

Thanks.

I have never really understood what the point of them was. I found it worked perfectly fine to just move a chair next to the countertop, hold them, let them sit directly on the counter, or sit them in a highchair near me if it was company they wanted.

You can't leave an 18mo unattended/unsupervised anywhere near a kitchen counter anyway so you can address the risk of falls by being there.

TBH I found it better to wait until they were more like 3.5 or 4 for them to get involved much in cooking/baking. Before that they have a very short attention span, not much sense of danger or coordination and they are very impulsive so it's difficult to follow a recipe with them. It worked OK to ad-hoc let them see what I was doing or "help" with a small part of a recipe that I knew how to do upside down and back to front, or to take an activity away from the countertop to the table which had more space and less hazards, like decorating cakes or putting toppings on a pizza.

We just have a pair of foldable steps. Toddler has been fine on them (she's 2.5 now) and she's never unattended. They work better with our tiny kitchen too.

We have a toddler tower, don’t use it an enormous amount as I don’t do the cooking in this household but we do use it, and really like it

We have one and use it a lot. Mainly for letting DS play in the sink while we're in the kitchen 😅 would recommend and as they're expensive it's better to get when they're young. We have a wooden one which does seem more sturdy than the plastic ones. I don't trust it completely but he's never left unattended in it even though he's 4 and our kitchen is a galley style and not huge so it's not like we're over the other side of a big room

No idea what a toddler tower is but we have THE IKEA wooden step (ours is an original and much denser than the newer style). Kids stood on it when they were little and now I stand on it to reach high shelves or use it as a stool. It's 20 years old and still in use. Don't buy a gimmick which needs to be chucked out.

You can't leave an 18mo unattended/unsupervised anywhere near a kitchen counter anyway so you can address the risk of falls by being there
Exactly this. We have a wooden double step stool from Ikea and it does the job just as well, better in fact, because the kids are still using it at 7 and 4 years old and even I occasionally use it to get at the top shelf since we have high ceilings. I suspect a toddler tower wouldn’t last you that long.

We use ours daily, DD loves being at the island while we prep meals etc. She will
sometimes have her snack there too if I’m working on something in the kitchen. Such a handy way for her to be up & involved but safer than standing on a chair or sitting on the counter.