This past May, my wife and I welcomed our third child. Our oldest is 8 and our now middle child is 5. We’ve found that few things change year after year when it comes to the fundamentals of parenting. What does change, however, is the catalog of products and new technologies created to make that most intrinsic act of parenting a little easier. One of the newest of these products is the mamaRoo from 4moms.
It seems like with each new child we had we’d purchase some new form of chair or daybed to rock, calm, and secure our baby at nap-time or while we did things around the house. Through much trial and error we realized that, for us, most of these products just didn’t work. Our babies liked to be held or just preferred a simple baby floor mat to lie on. But I quickly changed my mind when I saw the mamaRoo on display at Babies”R”Us.
The mamaRoo is the Cadillac of baby chairs. This thing has it all, is technologically impressive, and, most importantly, is loved by not only our little one but his baby cousins as well.
What makes the mamaRoo different than any rockers I’ve seen is the smoothness and wonder behind its movement. 4moms market the seat as moving like a person does, and that’s actually pretty accurate. The gliding motions come from a solid base which so seamlessly moves the seat that it truly replicates being in utero or even the rocking arm or bouncing lap of a parent. There are five speeds and a number of movement modes, including car ride, kangaroo, tree swing, rock-a-bye, and wave. Our little guy prefers wave, something I proudly (and incorrectly) attribute to living on the coast.
The easily adjustable seat allows you to switch between having the baby lying down and seated upright. Another critical point is that the seat cover is washable.
The mamaRoo is Bluetooth enabled, which means that you can control its motions through your phone or tablet. You can also control its sound that way, choosing from a number of “natural” white noise effects or the ability to actually play music from your own collection. This is one criticism I have. The speakers aren’t great and the white noise effects are pretty jarring. My only other criticism is that it would be great if the unit was wireless. Not that I want my baby sitting on top of a lithium battery, but the flexibility of the seat would be improved if we didn’t have to rely on plugging the mamaRoo in to use it.
All in all, the mamaRoo has been a great addition to our arsenal of baby furniture–one that the baby actually prefers. The sheer technical coolness of the seat makes it quite the source of conversation. I’m excited to check out 4moms other new products, including a magnetic highchair and the first self-installing, self-monitoring car seat!
We loved this thing, the problem is our baby did not! She hated it. She preferred a back to forward motion vs a side to side motion. I really wish it had a setting to rotate the seat. This became door stopper in our home and we ended up picking up a traditional swing.