I received the Baby Einstein Baby Neptune Ocean Adventure Gym as a gift for my new baby girl. It was different than the other exercise mats my friends and family had, but it seemed to have a lot of goodies on it so I kept it. The Baby Einstein Baby Neptune Ocean Adventure Gym is a nice mat with lots of features, but it is lacking in a few areas.
The Baby Einstein Baby Neptune Ocean Adventure Gym is a circular mat with two bars that cross over the top. Toys can hang from various spots on the bars or be hooked to the mat itself. The design is where I find the two main flaws with this mat versus other mats. First, the two bars are fairly close together. This means that when hooking larger toys, things you hang are often overlapping or interfering with each other. In addition, the bars tend to close up at times because they are so close. The heavy music box that hangs on the bars actually causes them to pull even closer together and bunch up the mat. When my baby used this, I was fixing it every day to make it open up as far as it could go. Other mats on the market are square, with the bars going to each corner and the music box on top. I prefer those mats because they are easier to keep flat and there is more room to hang the toys.
The other problem I had with this mat is the loops. Some of the loops are nice and large and make it easy for me to hang or move toys around. Other loops are small and very tight and just barely fit a ring into them. Since I wanted to utilize as many of the loops and hooks as I could, it was frustrating trying to put rings into some of the holes. I would recommend putting a ring into every hole up front, and then never moving those rings. You can then hook toys onto the rings separately and move the toys around that way.
The mat isn’t bad though, just a little frustrating because of those too issues. There are many fun things for baby on the Baby Einstein Baby Neptune Ocean Adventure Gym that kept her entertained for months. First there is the music box which flashes some colors and plays songs. It can be set to just play, or set to react to motion or pressing the button. When my baby got older we changed it to the motion setting, but that really only kept her entertained slightly more than just leaving the music on. I don’t know if she even realized SHE was starting the music by pulling on a toy.
Since it’s an ocean mat, it comes with ocean themed toys. There is an octopus that has rings attached, a big stuffed whale, and a little turtle rattle. There is also a mirror and a couple of plastic animal “cards” that hook on to the mat. The turtle rattle and the animal cards are the two things my baby still plays with. She always liked those a lot. As a younger baby, she liked watching the octopus overhead and pulling on the rings. When I put her on her tummy, I would put the mirror in front of her to give her something to look at. The whale was always kind of just there. She laughs at it now sometimes but never really played with it.
Overall this mat worked for tummy time and allowed us to hook many toys to it for baby to swat and grab at. Once she got old enough to roll over, she wasn’t interested in it anymore. I’d try to entice her to stay on the mat but that was the last place she wanted to be – she had freedom! Although we still kept all the toys from the mat, she really only plays with those few I mentioned above. It’s a decent mat, but I’d recommend going with a mat that is simpler and square. Realize that baby won’t use this for long so you can spend your money on other items instead.