Love with with the exception of 2 flaws...
December 7, 2018
Having had several other playards over the years, I was in love when I found this one. It is the easiest playard to put up and take down. I love that, unlike many other playards, this one has an edge that is completely covered by fabric, with no plastic pieces sticking out inside the playard, which is the first reason we choose it (our daughter's tooth was damaged by interior plastic on a playard of another brand). The bottom mat comes out and has an easily removable cover, which is also water proof, so the inside stays clean and dry. The entire play cover is removable, which is fantastic, but this is also where one of the flaws comes in.
The first time I was removing the cover, I watched a Chicco tutorial on how to do it. It took a little more finagling than it did in the video except for one area that took A LOT of finagling. It did not come off as effortlessly as it did in the video.
The top edge of the cover unzips, completely; however, part of it is physically connected where the plastic handles are and it doesn't just come out from around the plastic (which is what I first expected considering the way our Chicco carseat does). I did what the video showed and could not get the side to pop off. My husband tried too. Together, we spent about 10 min trying to get it off in the same way it shows in the video--the plastic WOULD NOT BUDGE--which resulted in the fabric being torn.
I was/am very frustrated that Chicco would make this so difficult. Why not just make it so that the fabric slides off from around the plastic piece??? Why would you fashion something in such a way that requires the end-user to pull on it in a manner that could result in damage to the product?
By this point, we now had the fabric pulled away and had to figure out how to get the plastic piece off (which is supposed to be permanently attached to the fabric--why Chicco??? WHY???) in order to reattach the cover to it after we were done cleaning it. We determined that, somehow, pulling the fabric is what triggers the release, so my husband and I worked together to slide the edge of a towel under the plastic piece, where the fabric would have been. It took several tries and hard tugging before the plastic piece FINALLY came loose.
Detaching the cover from the opposite side was much easier, so perhaps ours was defective? Be very careful when removing the cover from the sides.
Other than that, I don't like that it sits on the floor.
It is really difficult to lay my sleeping child in it without having to practically dropping her an inch or so. I'm 5'7, so I'm not particularly short.
Other than those 2 things, I love this playard.
This product review was collected by the manufacturer.