The Montikids play gym is an incredibly cool, well-thought-out piece of baby gear. While it’s called their “newborn to 3 months old” kit (Level 1 in Montikids lingo), in reality, it’s designed to be used for longer than 3 months. The mobiles should keep your baby’s attention until 5 months old, and many of the toys can be re-purposed and used in future Montikids play kits (Level 2 and beyond).
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Pros:
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Cons:
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- Heirloom quality toy that will last through multiple children and hold re-sale value when you're done with it
- Follows Montessori educational philosophy, offering high quality and developmentally appropriate activity for newborns
- Designed to target specific skills, including vision development, hand-eye and foot-eye coordination, and grasping
- Will last through the first 6 months, and the toys and mobiles can be repurposed once your little one outgrows the gym frame
- No tool set up that's incredibly fast after practicing a few times
- Beautiful mobiles you may want to use in children's room once finished with the gym
- Access to the Parent Resource Library for educational and Montessori content, and ideas for interacting with your baby
- The mobiles are somewhat delicate, meaning you'll have to care for them and store them properly
- It's expensive - more expensive than the Lovevery Play Gym
- It's big, and takes up a large footprint in your home.
Montikids Newborn Kit: What’s Included with this Montessori Baby Activity Gym?
The Montikids newborn kit (Level 1) comes with:
- The play gym frame;
- 4 different Montessori mobiles;
- 6 different toys which you can use with the gym frame, or remove for tummy time or other activities;
- A “Long Key” from which to hang the toys, and a “Short Key” from which to hang the toys;
- Cloth straps to attach the mobiles and toys to the play gym frame;
- The Montikids Level 1 Quick Start Guide, which gives you tips for using this Montessori baby gym to its maximum developmental benefit; and,
- Access to the Montikids Parent Learning Centre (not available if you purchase second-hand), which is full of videos, Montessori specific tips, and ideas for using the products.
The Monti Kids play gym comes with 4 different Montessori mobiles (plus 6 toys), great for the youngest babies to enjoy when lying on their backs, simply looking! This is certainly one of the most expensive play gyms on the market, but it's packed with developmental value for your youngest family members, especially in the first 3 months when you want to keep baby busy observing the world around them. The downside? It's pricey, and it doesn't come with a play mat.
Montessori Mobiles
The Montikids play gym comes with 4 Montessori mobiles, each of which is thoughtfully designed to help stimulate your little one’s eyesight at different stages of their development.
Each mobile consists of brightly colored, high contrast, or color gradient shapes hanging from a frame.
The shapes are simple and easy to see and recognize, which makes it easier for baby to focus on them.
They also rotate and move through the air quite elegantly, creating interesting movements to capture baby’s attention, and helping to keep them interested when you need to set them down under the play gym for a bit.
The Munari Mobile
A high contrast, black and white mobile known as the Munari Mobile is the first mobile meant to be used with this Montessori play gym.
The Munari mobile is specifically designed for the visual limitations of infants in the first weeks and months of life.
At birth, newborn babies can only focus on objects that are between 8 and 10 inches from their face, and can only see in black and white.
The contrast between the black and white make it far more visually interesting and achievable for newborns to see, allowing them to track movement, focus their attention, and flex those eyesight development muscles in preparation for the next stage.
The Munari mobile is also full of geometry, which according to Montikids will help ignite your baby’s “inherent mathematical sense.”
In fact, simple geometric shapes are some of the first shapes babies are interested in, and they start to notice and track circles, squares, triangles around two months of age, with increasingly sophisticated geometric perception as they grow.
Baby’s first STEM toy?
Octahedron Mobile
Around two months of age, a baby’s development has progressed enough that they stop seeing primarily in black and white.
At this point, they can start to distinguish simple colors, and by 3 to 4 months old, most babies are able to see primary colors.
Enter, the Octahedron mobile, which consists of 3 octahedrons made of a shiny, metallic card stock.
It introduces those primary colors to your little one right when they are ready to move beyond black and white, and practice their color perception.
On a sunny day, they catch light like a prism might, and make stunning shapes that dance on the floor.
Gobbi Mobile
While babies start to perceive colors around 2 months of age, and can see primary colors by 4 months, they still struggle with more complex colors, such as pastels, or with distinguishing between color gradations, such as different shades of green.
The Montikids Gobbi models gives them something to practice with, offering 5 small globes that hang in chromatic order, from darkest to lightest green.
While the paper/cardstock mobiles are quite delicate, the Gobbi model is a bit less delicate, allowing for a bit of touching, too, if your baby is included towards hitting or grabbing the little balls.
It also has a wood hanging bar, rather than the thin, clear plastic bars used with the paper mobiles, which again lends some strength to this one.
Dancers Mobile
The Dancers mobile has the most complicated movement of the 4 mobiles included in Montikids’ Montessori baby gym.
The shapes of the dancers are more complicated, and they balance differently as they hang, with some dancers tipping up and down as they dance through the air.
It’s designed that way, as by this stage your baby should have more sophisticated visual tracking skills, and the Dancers mobile will give them a challenge.
It moves quite beautifully and gracefully, just as dancers do, and is captivating for little ones to look at and watch.
Great to help babies refine focusing their eyes and attention and tracking objects.
Grasping Toys and Hanging Toys
In addition to the mobiles, Montikids play gyms also come with 6 toys: a crochet ring, grasping toy, batting ball, grasping ring, hanging discs, and kicking ball.
The crochet ring, grasping toy, and grasping ring are considered “grasping toys” and the batting ball, hanging disc, and kicking ball are considered “hanging toys.” In reality, both types of toys can be used hanging from the play gym frame or off the frame in other ways.
Crochet Ring: 6 small globes are crocheted into a ring, with rattles in each of them to surprise and delight your little one. The rattles aren’t too loud, and give off a gentle sound when you shake them. The Crochet Ring is also smaller than the grasping ring, making it a good choice for younger babies.
Grasping Toy: A very simple wooden oval, this grasping toy has thick sides and a nice smooth finish. It’s a more challenging shape to grasp for your little one, but still nice and small once they do get ahold of it.
Batting Ball: A squishy knit ball with a few different textures, and a rattle buried inside of it which makes noise when you bat or shake the toy – some great cause and effect action! It attaches to the gym frame and keyhole with a simple yarn loop.
Grasping Ring: A blue wooden ring that’s about the size of a coaster, and is large enough that it’s not too challenging for baby to reach out and try to grab it. It’s great to use as a hanging toy from the play gym frame, but you can also detach it and simply let your little one grab onto it when they’re in their stroller, bouncer or car seat, or simply hanging around.
Hanging Disc: A red wooden disc that forms a cross or plus sign when looking at it from above. When interacting with it as a baby, it’s a far more complex shape than a ball or ring, with different faces and 3 dimensions to figure out and more of a challenge when it comes to hand-eye coordination.
Kicking Ball: The kicking ball is more than triple the size of the batting ball, giving your little one ample “target space” when they start trying to kick at it with their feet and working on their foot-eye coordination. The kicking ball is like squats for your little one, helping to build up their strength in their lower half and core as a pre-cursor to moving and walking on their own. It’s quite similar to the 3D textured cotton ball that comes with the Play Gym by Lovevery.
The Long Key and Short Key System
The Montikids system to hang up the mobiles and toys is quite ingenious, and makes it really easy to swap out mobiles or toys quickly.
It uses a “key” system.
The “keys” have a hole at the bottom where you can attach the toys and mobiles via a fabric strap (included in the kit).
To hang the mobiles, use the short key. This ensures the mobiles hang at an appropriate (and safe) height for your baby to enjoy them.
Each mobile has a small thread loop at the top of it.
Using the canvas and velcro straps that come with the play gym, you loop the straps through the “short key” and the thread loop – voila – it’s attached!
I find I’m able to install each mobile in about 30 seconds!
The toys use the “long key” – this ensures they hang lower, so your baby can actually reach for them or kick them.
The keys simply slide in and out of the top of the play gym, making everything super easy to swap out as needed.
Unique Features of the Montikids Montessori Activity Gym
It’s Tall…Way Taller than Other Baby Gyms
The first thing you’ll notice once you setup your own Montikids gym is how tall it is. I’m 5 foot tall, and you can see it comes all the way up to my rib cage.
When I measure mine from the floor to the top of the frame, it stands 36.5″ tall!
The height is a feature, not a bug, as it allows the different mobiles to hang at an appropriate, safe height for your baby to enjoy them.
No Tool Setup
One thing I love about this wooden play gym is that I don’t need tools to set it up. I will admit it took me a few tries to get it setup the first time, but now that I know how to do it, it’s quick.
For interest’s sake, I timed myself setting up the play gym frame.
Once the pieces were laid out properly (as per the instructions, and the photo of my pieces below), it only took me 45 seconds. Quick!
Excellent Packaging
The mobiles – especially the Dancers, Gobbi, and Octahedron – are delicate!
I think the Montikids packaging for each mobile is a home run, as you can see how properly secured the pieces are when you need to put them away.
It also helps ensure the strings don’t get completely tangled when it’s in storage.
Final Thoughts: Is the Montikids Level 1 Worth It?
The biggest drawback to the Montikids Level 1 kit, in my opinion, is the price.
I get that it can be hard to justify spending so much on a toy your little one will only use for 6 months or less (although, that’s not entirely true, as the mobiles and toys can be used in other ways once your kiddo outgrows the gym frame).
But for families who do have the budget, I think it’s an incredibly worthwhile investment, giving you some great activities to keep your little one busy in those first few months – and encourage critical development in terms of their vision, coordination, and motor skills.
Furthermore, it gives parents a bit of a break when making dinner, etc., having something that your baby truly enjoys staring at when not being snuggled by a loved one. Which – to many new parents – is pretty much priceless!
The Monti Kids play gym comes with 4 different Montessori mobiles (plus 6 toys), great for the youngest babies to enjoy when lying on their backs, simply looking! This is certainly one of the most expensive play gyms on the market, but it's packed with developmental value for your youngest family members, especially in the first 3 months when you want to keep baby busy observing the world around them. The downside? It's pricey, and it doesn't come with a play mat.
