Customer Reviews

Crocodile Creek Placemat Natural World

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I like these mats immensely. While sitting waiting for food to appear, Toddleator can name things on the mat, count, talk about what she sees. Spills don't show immediately, I recommend post-meal rinses every time. With stuck on food stuffs though, I discovered 'soaking' works better then scrubbing--the paint/ink/print will rub off even with the 'no scratch' sponges I use.
Practical and useful.

This has nice illustrations on it, but the fact that it's a mat for children and doesn't allow for cleaning with a scrubber (dried porridge, anyone?) makes it a mistake, in my view. I used the green side of a sponge to get rid of some egg yolk and the picture started coming off immediately. That's just not child/parent-friendly.

My other gripe, although small, is that most kids will presume a small furry animal with large ears is a rabbit, but here it's a hare. They could have used horse instead. There doesn't seem to be any relevance to which animals were used - I presumed it was jungle animals, but it has hares and yaks in there, but also a lion (which doesn't have a mane and so is also a little confusing for little ones). And then, quite randomly, it has a volcano. No animals beginning with v? And the poor volcano isn't even erupting. I'm being extremely picky, but I was just a little disappointed - the idea is so nice, and I love the fact that there are often two words with each letter (lion and lily; walrus and waves; porcupine and puddle), but some pictures just disappointed. Daughter loves it, so it's just me!

I clearly ordered the alphabet placement but the world map placement came instead. At 5$, it's not worth the effort to return the item.

My son has been using this placemat for a couple of years now, and on the whole we've been very happy with it. The drawings on it are charming, and he still enjoys looking at and naming the pictures and letters. I have just a couple of nitpicks, though. First, the plastic this mat is made of is slick, so it slid all over the table (kind of dangerous when a little toddler puts his hand on the mat while trying to climb into his seat and the mat slips causing him to lose his grip). That was solved easily enough, though, by putting some sticky mesh shelf liner under the mat. My other complaint, as other reviewers have mentioned, is that if you have to scrub anything off of the mat the picture does flake off. At first that didn't bother me too much, but now after a couple of years use it's starting to look pretty beat up. I guess having a relatively inexpensive placemat last for a couple of years, I can't complain too much, but still I wish it was more durable and cleaning friendly.

just needed a mat to protect our table from drippy babyfood jars, etc., but our daughter took to this -- I don't know if it was the pattern or the sturdy material, but she treats it almost as a toy when she's in her highchair, lifting and waving it around between meals... (also well-made and easy to clean, with amusing illustrations of letters)

Update: still in use a couple of years later, but some of the decoration is starting to wear off a bit. The placemat still works (and it's still mostly for holdiing stuff in front of her highchair, rather than getting eaten on), but little scratches of white space are appearing, so if a perfect image is important to you, this might not be the most durable choice...

This is a really nice placemat. My son and I enjoy the "artsy" pictures. Easy to clean too! I hoped it would have a foam backing though.