Melissa & Doug Deluxe Pounding Bench Wooden Preschool Learning Toy With Mallet

my grandson loves this , he is 18months

Nice quality

loved it good quality

I got two. One for each grandkid

Grandson gift great price

I have a grandson who turned 2 at the beginning of this month and he really doesn't like baby toys. He has an older sister and he likes trying to play with her stuff but it's not age-appropriate so I wanted to find something that would get, and keep his attention. I searched through toys for hours one night and couldn't find anything I didn't think he'd get bored with after a day. There are so many gimmicky toys for kids that just don't hold up. I like solid, wooden toys when I can find them. I really like Doug and Melissa products and so do my daughter and son for their kids. I watch my grandson during the week and decided that my rough and tumble little guy needed something that made noise and he could be rough with. I thought of the pounding benches they had when my son was little and decided it would be perfect for him. So I did a search and found many different brands and price points. What stood out for me with the Melissa & Doug Deluxe Pounding Bench was that not only were they a brand I liked and trusted for well-built toys, they had perfected the pounding bench! One thing I was concerned with was losing parts. Those little pegs you pound in come out the other end and inevitably over time they would get lose. I don't like buying toys with a lot of pieces for that reason but Melissa and Doug's pounding bench was made so that the pegs could not be pounded out. Instead, the pegs on the left were connected to the pegs on the right so when you pound one peg and it goes down, the other side comes up. Genius! The price was great and it arrived in just 2 days. My grandson loves it! I keep it at our house so the noisy toy isn't foisted upon his parents and he can get all his frustrations out at our house. Two weeks after he got it the end piece that holds one of the sides up came out of its grooves and was laying on the floor. He's only 2 so I couldn't see how he could've pulled it out but there you go. It took a lot of work to get back in and my hubby will be using some wood glue to reinforce it. That was disappointing for the quality I trust in Melissa and Doug products but he's back to using it every single day and never grows bored. That's money well-spent. A simple wooden toy that amuses day after day.

Ordered two of these, one for each grandkid. One is a one-year old, and the other is eighteen months. I wasn't sure if they were ready for the is toy or not, but both loved it. There are a couple of things I like about it. I grew up with the Fisher-Price and Brio versions, and they were fun, but the pegs would loosen up and fall out and get lost. It also took a lot of coordination and some strength to drive the pegs. With the Melissa and Doug version, the pegs can be pushed by small hands, even without the hammer. They won't fall through and get lost. It is noisy, but the kids seem to love the racket. If it gets too noisy, I guess you could hide the hammer--it will still work. The "whack-a-mole" action where one peg pops up when another is pushed down, makes it even more fun than the old version of this toy.

First let me start by saying I generally love all Melissa and Dog toys. They are simple, great quality products. I had been thinking about getting some sort of peg-pounding device for some time and figured approaching 2.5 years old was probably a good time - especially since my son is currently intent on "fixing" everything in the house (including the dogs and myself) by beating them with plastic wrenches and screwdrivers.I've seen so many of these toys where the pegs go through too easily (so really what's the point) or are just about impossible to pound down (requiring the child to "practice" by hitting it harder and harder and harder - thereby developing a sense that full strength is needed for every endeavor and endangering the health and lives of all living and non-living things crossing their path). These go down pretty easily but the mechanism that keeps the pegs always attached to the bench at least creates a little resistance - making it "just right"Now, when I decided to purchase the toy, I thought the idea of keeping the pegs attached to the bench was a fabulous idea. I am an older parent and the little one doesn't understand that I have to bend much farther to pick up the 43 billion toys that inevitably end up just under the couch, the radiators, the cabinets, etc. I was looking forward to keeping this particular device all together all of the time. And then we get the toy. When you pound down a peg on one side, the opposite peg pokes it's little face up. Once I actually experienced the toy - I panicked. There was no way he is going to enjoy this! How frustrating - You can never pound all of the pegs down! How is he going to take out his frustration? Will this very solid wooden toy be thrown across the room, shattering windows, cracking skulls? Am I dooming him to a life of suffering - creating a young Sisyphus? Depriving him of any hope for the future? Any chance for success? Only time will tell.We've had it for a few days now and he absolutely loves it, he gets to pound down four colored smiley faced pegs and then, magically, there are four more different colors to pound. He calls it his "work tool bench" and as soon as he wakes up he asks to go downstairs and play with it.I leave him to it and go in another room - It's too stressful for me ;)