Customer Reviews

Haba Pipapo Rattle

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

 

 

My 6 mo. old loves this toy - he can flip the circles around and around because they're on an elastic band, and he shakes it around too. i feel better knowing he's not chewing on plastic.

We purchased this toy as part of our 4-month old's "natural" and wooden toy collection to replace his plastic (and made-in-China) toys. We like it because it is made in Germany and is created with all water-based non-toxic stains on natural wood. He loves it for many reasons - the sounds that it makes, the fact that he can wrap his tiny fingers around the rings, and it is one of his first choices to teeth on as well (he has 2 teeth and working on more). We will be purchasing additional toys from this company in the future.

My 9 month old son got this toy when he was 6 months. At 6 months he wasn't as interested in it, but as he gets older he enjoys the fact that he can rotate the rings, move the balls & disks, and squash the toy.

It's also great to chew on since he's teething, and I feel great letting him chew on a natural wood toy instead of something plastic. It's easily stuffed into a diaper bag, and keeps him entertained as well if not better than most of his other wood toys.

This seemed like a neat toy until my 6 mo old son dropped it from his high chair and it broke.

My daughter loved this toy! It was the one toy we always had to have, and was a great teether. The only draw back is that it's fragile. The first one we bought lasted a few months until it was dropped from a high chair. The second one was thrown from a sitting position on our wood floor and shattered into several little pieces. It worries me that it breaks into such small pieces and it could easily become a choking hazard. We love Haba and have owned tons of toys made by them. This toy is the first haba to break on us. :( I went ahead and gave it 3 stars because it was her favorite toy, but please monitor your child closely when they are playing with this!

I bought this toy for my 6 month old daughter. It is a great product she loves the colors and the noises she can make when she shakes it. I am just so glad I could find a toy not made in China. I did hear a rumor that some toys that are marked "made in Germany" can be products that were actually in China. I am just going to trust that they weren't.

My daughter loved this toy beginning around 3 months. It's multidimensional shape made it easy for her to grasp and she was captivated by its movement and malleability. It was her favorite, her "go-to toy"--one might even say her first love. That is, until she dropped it and the large yellow circle split in half. She was heartbroken; I felt betrayed. Haba, you have been so good to us in the past. What happened here? We still think of Pipapo fondly.

My daughter is 4.5 years old. My son is 6 months. Recently, the Pipapo infant toy broke. The large yellow wooden ring broke where the elastic passes through it.

I contacted customer service. A customer service representative said that, technically, I need to send it back to the company from whom it was purchased. This could be because Haba USA shares a physical address with maukilo.com. Unfortunately, I do not remember where I purchased this Pipapo infant toy.

Other customer service departments of other baby toy companies are very kind to their customers and don't seem to be concerned about which vendor I purchase their product from. I purchased a Tiny Love wind-up mobile for a stroller that would no longer wind after the first time it was used. The customer service at Tiny Love was fantastic. They replaced the whole toy free of charge and would have given me a prepaid shipping label if there were any safety issues, which there weren't.

We also have a Peg Perego high chair. The wheels wear out with much use. I called Peg Perego customer service and the sole representative was very kind and pleasant and willing to do whatever she could to help. We have since purchased a Perego stroller for my daughter's dolls in addition to our fabulous high chair. The nice thing about this stroller is that its front rubber wheels swivel 360 degrees and the handlebars are encircled at the top with foam.

Considering how much we have invested in Haba products over the years and how much Haba charges for them in the first place, I would have expected their customer service to be top of the line the first time I called.

Since I cannot remember the company through which I purchased this product, Haba USA customer service then said that I can ship this toy back for replacement. I find this proposal inconvenient. First, I have to find a package to ship it back. Then, I have to wait in line at the post office with my six month old who will not tolerate the stroller and wants to be held constantly. Next, I have to spend my money to ship this Haba product that broke back to Haba (so it can be analyzed by an engineering quality control team, when there is at least one other individual whose Pipapo broke, based on amazon.com reviews). I then have to wait some indefinite amount of time to get a complete toy shipped back to me. A better proposal would have been that a box is sent from Haba with a prepaid shipping label that fits the item appropriately, with a replacement "finely engineered German toy," so my son does not have to wait to get this toy by snail mail until he has grown out of it in a few months and is more interested in things with wheels once he starts to crawl.

When I asked if I need to send the ring that broke back or the whole Pipapo, the first representative said that she needs the whole product for quality control. Thus, I can't even have part of the toy for my son to play with until the replacement arrives.

After thinking the matter over, I called customer service back. I asked for Haba Germany so I can send this toy back to Germany (and ensure that the parent company is aware of customer service which could be improved upon [which I did not tell the representative]). I got a different customer service representative. She asked if I had just called and I said yes. This time, she was nasty to me. She practically yelled at me for asking for the German counterpart address. She wouldn't give it to me.

After this second experience with Haba USA customer service, I e-mailed Haba Germany customer service directly. The customer service manager of Haba USA called me to follow up. The Haba Pipapo was replaced free of charge. A pre-paid envelope was included in the package that contained the replacement Pipapo. I was able to simply pack the toy and drop it in the mail.

In the meantime, I looked for some alternative products to Haba which we may try in the future. Chocolate Cream Erzella, made by Erzi, looks like Nutella in packaging to supplement by daughter's collection of play food. The Hess Rattle Kugel appears to be a good product. Moolka.com sells sets of two Vilac cars with gas pump enclosed--the smaller vehicles are extremely well made but I have found that the hub caps of the larger vehicles are discolored and may rust in the future. These are all made in Europe. BlueberryForest.com has an excellent selection of well-researched products.

The toy looks pretty. But it's kind of small and fails to entice a baby. Or at least it did my 10-months-old son. He generally loves wooden toys and is used to simple things - this one he didn't play with even once. I am disappointed.