Fisher Price Deluxe Take Along Baby Swing Review

We received this swing as a gift when my son was about 4 months old. A preemie with a low tolerance for everything, we survived 3 months of colic before our pastor surprised us with the swing.

 Now, three years later, it's survived multiple trips to see my parents (3 hours away) as well as 2 children.

Pros:

1) Easy to use - how hard is it to turn a switch? Even changing the batteries is fairly easy.

2) Music - while not exactly calming to us, both my kids seemed to love the music. Personally, I would go for a white-noise swing, but that's just wishful thinking!

3) Lights - can be over stimulating for young infants, but generally an exciting time for babies. Even my toddler loved to watch them!

4) Portable - portable means it can be taken from point A to point B easily. They never said it was compact. If your baby can sleep in a crib overnight, take a pack and play to save some space

Cons:

1) Bye-Bye Batteries - everyone knows that parenting costs a LOT of money. Diapers, bottles, formula (if you go that route), clothes, more clothes, shoes, trips to the doctor, medicine, etc. However, this thing just kills batteries without a second thought. Taking 4 C batteries, it's not cheap. For us, one set of batteries would last between 4-7 days, depending on the amount we used it. Not exactly comforting when you have a crying baby at 3 AM and the batteries die!

2) As your baby grows, the swing slows - it's logic that as the baby gets heavier, the more energy it takes to move the swing. However, we were amazed that the swing was REALLY lagging when our daughter hit about 12 pounds. Fortunately, she was able to master the art of crib sleeping.

3) Those dangly toys can wake babies up - you know what babies flail their arms? Forgot what the reflex is called, but all babies do it. You CAN tie the toys to the side, but older babies still hit them.

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As I mentioned before, it's not a bad little swing. However, now there are much more efficient models on the market. I highly recommend looking at other brands and models instead of just buying this one.