Customer Reviews

Disney's Winnie The Pooh Baby

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My 10-month old baby sees me typing at the computer so much, it's only natural that her little hands reach for the keyboard at every opportunity. I was thrilled when I found this computer software, specifically aimed towards her age group (9-24 months).

In description it sounds great, but in use, it's very disappointing. The graphics are beautiful, and the opening and closing sequences caught my baby's attention. But aside from that, there is so little to do. I can't imagine it being entertaining for very long for any child.

I was hoping that each keystroke would cause an immediate reaction on the screen, accompanied by sound, but most of the movements and sounds are too subtle to be interesting to a baby. Even worse, sometimes a keystroke doesn't result in any action at all. For the most part, my baby ignores what's going on on screen.

Also, the most poorly planned part of this software is that it does not have a feature to deactivate the Control, Windows, and function keys on the keyboard. This means that if you let your baby loose to push whatever keys she wants, you end up with problems like the Start menu popping up, and once that is activated, pushing any other keys can cause all kinds of things to happen which you don't want! Even with you sitting right there holding your baby, in just seconds your baby can do stuff you didn't know was possible to your computer. Now, whenever I let her play with this software, I try to keep her hands away from the off-limits keys. This frustrates her, and is tiresome to me.

Software for babies is a great idea, but this one falls far short of what it could be. I definitely wouldn't recommend it, aside from the cuteness factor.

This software didn't impress me at first, but my 13 month old son has come to enjoy it and request it. At the beginning, the Pooh characters wave to us, and now my son will come over to the computer and wave at it as if to ask me to start this software. When I start it up, he gets excited and starts banging on the keyboard. The software is based on the idea of "pressing any key", and then things happen on the screen. The graphics are a little lame, but the voices are quite good. It is a little funny at times, and the five different activities give it replay-ability. This software is a nice change of pace from videos, and I would buy it again.

not worth buying unless your baby is crazy about pooh, and I don't think any 9 month old would be so decided in preference. My son actually played with it since 7 mo old, and we found that the response times are so awful that even we could not see the correlation between key strokes and activities on screen, this was with a then year old laptop. Its slow but barely tolerable with our now 3 yr old computer. Further, all of the keys are not captured, so your son can shut down, change the display, or otherwise lock up the computer while playing by slecting random things from the start or windows menus. its hard(NOT POSSIBLE) to tell an excited 7 mo old to press only the spacebar or some other one key! At 17 months he is finally calmer and gentler to the keyboard, and knows to hit one key at a time but definitely not earlier.

He loves jump start baby, and sesame street baby just as much, and those are much nicer on your nerves, as you don't need to calm a baby upset because his game has disappeared, and keep him soothed while rebooting yet again! The mickey toddler is better built

My 15 month old son absolutely adores Reader Rabbit Toddler, but still has difficulty remembering to slide the mouse around as opposed to slamming it down on the desk. When I found this software, created specifically for babies, I was thrilled to see that keystrokes would create responses on screen and that my son wasn't expected to use the mouse at all. I just had to have it! After all, it was a Disney product so it had to be good, right? Hmmm...The opening scene was really great - my son was instantly captivated, but from there on out it was astonishingly bad. The premise is that very young children learn "cause and effect" by pushing the keys to create some kind of feedback on screen. What happens instead is that there is a pause -of up to 4 seconds, somtimes - before anything happens, and often it seems as though on screen movement occurs independently of the keystrokes. There is only the most intermitent feedback. My son lost interest within minutes and, after trying it a few more times, would begin to squirm and fuss whenever I pulled Winnie the Pooh Baby up on the screen. (Nothing against Pooh, either. He loves the whole cast of characters and especially adores Tigger.) What a shame that Disney scrimped on test-marketing and focus groups with this one. It makes me very leary of purchasing any other Disney software. I complained enough to the computer store where I purchased this, that they ended up letting me trade it in. I got another title by The Learning Company (Reader Rabbit), whose interactive software I highly recommend. Don't waste your money or your time on this one.

My 15 month old loves this software! She particularly loves helping Pooh find his honey and playing peek a boo with Tigger. As far as the Start, Control, and Alt keys are concerned (in reference to ... ...), I have had no troubles. Although it is a bit slow on the reaction time for a couple of the modules, you wouldn't expect Winnie the Pooh to be bouncing all over the screen either. The musical pots and pans with Roo has an instant reaction time. As far as keeping your baby attentive, keep in mind that babies still have short attention spans, and most won't sit still for an hour (mine never sits still). However she has sit still for 20 minutes in my lap to play this game! Overall, this is an excellent program, and I will be purchasing the toddler version in a few months.

My 23 month old son enjoys pounding on the keyboard. Since this is a key-driven program, it's great for him.

However, since they know that small children don't have the dexterity to key very well, they should give the option to disable certain keys, like "windows," alt and Ctrl. This will keep the screen from jumping back and forth between the desktop and the game.

Also, I have had issues with the Macromedia Director install that the game requires while running Win XP on both a desktop and laptop.

Take it FWIW.

For my 14 month old duaghter, I purchased this software as well as Reader Rabbit Baby/Toddler and JumpStart Toddler. She lost interest in the Disney software after approximately 5 minutes. It is not as interactive as the others and is not particularly engaging. She's nuts about the Reader Rabbit software and has learned to use both the keyboard and mouse with the Reader Rabbit games.

I too must come to the defense of this product. My daughter, now 18 months, has loved this since 9 months. We have Reader Rabbit and Jumpstart, which she enjoys, but is clearly more entertained by Winnie the Pooh and Friends. Granted, she may not think this is much different than a video, but she is learning to hit the keys, and understand there's a relationship with them and the action on the screen. The quality is great - the best I've seen for baby and toddler software.

I purchased this software for my 20 month old - her sister learned to use the mouse with Reader Rabbit playtime for baby so I decided to purchase software made for babies so that my 20 month old could begin to learn how to use the mouse. I was very disappointed to learn that she could only use the keyboard - there should have been an option to use the keyboard or mouse. All in all there are a few activies on the software that she does like; however, I would not recommend this.

I must come to the defense of the the program based on the other reviews. My son loves it. He has been observed to be at least 6 months ahead of average on verbal and learning skills and is not bored by the program.

The slow response to pressing a key can only be caused by a slow computer. Ours is nearly 5 years old and responds wonderfully. As to using it with a 3 year old, it is rated 9-24 months, not 36. Comments by other reviewers suggest that THEY were not impressed, remember it is for the kid not the adult. As to pushing all the keys, be ready to teach your child from the first play to touch a single key rather than bang on it at will. My son learned this on the first day.

Give it a try.