Are Kids Subscription Boxes Better than Toy Stores?
MY HUSBAND AND I arent joiners, so those much-ballyhooed subscription serviceswhich send curated products of every sort to your door on a predetermined scheduledont interest us. Well sniff and pick our own Gruyre, thanks. Pass. But for the benefit of our beloved toddler, well try anything. Which is why we fell for our first ever Instagram ad: subscription toy box Lovevery. Join the conversation below. For a bedraggled parent short on time and energy, these services can seem like a Fairy Toymother. Just plug in your tots birthday and await playthings designed by experts, tailored to your kids age and presumed interests, to be delivered at regular intervals. Lovevery consults cognitive developmental psychologists to craft boxes that meet fledglings at their levelsay, threadable beads for a toddler or a Technicolor silicone teether for a 3-month-old (kits for ages 0 to 36 months, from $36 a month, lovevery.com). We asked the pros. My big motto [is] kids dont need fancy to have fun, said Susie Allison, a Seattle mother of three and brains behind the popular @busytoddler Instagram account. This is a group of people entertained by a cardboard box. We dont necessarily need to be reaching for the moon in order to reach them educationally. Because subscription boxes are tailored to a set age rather than your actual kid, the selections inside may be met with a meh response. The toy or the book or whatever it is that comes is not ever going to reach every single child....I think its more important to curate something specific to your child, Ms. Allison said. And anyway, some of the biggest brainiacs in history managed to gather their wits without mass-made toys, much less baubles by mail. Dr. Dana Suskind, co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago and author of Thirty Million Words: Building a Childs Brain, takes a different tack. Anything to make it easier on parents, Im all about, she said. My feeling is if they...help generate interaction between parent and child, thats an amazing thing. Playing and talking togethereven if your kid is not yet verbalhas a transformative effect, she explained, helping catalyze approximately one million new neural connections every second. Other than the expense, I dont really see a downside, said Dr. Harvey Karp, assistant professor of pediatrics at the USC School of Medicine and author of the bestselling The Happiest Baby on the Block book series. He said paying for toy deliveries can help harried parents by taking one thingresearching age-appropriate toysoff the never-ending to-do list. I think theyre well done, said Mr. Karp, who noted he hasnt seen every option out there but appreciated the ones he has come across. Theyre thoughtful. Theyre really trying to be supportive and to be educational as well as being helpful for the child. Take KiwiCo, which offers you-build-it STEAM and STEM projects like a stomp-launched rocket for 5-to-8-year-olds or a hydraulic claw for tweens (from $16 a month, kiwico.com). With any luck, they can lessen summer ennui enough to prevent hearing the refrain: Im boooored!  The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in its articles as outlets for products. Listed retailers frequently are not the sole retail outlets.