Lulling Baby to Sleep

Shortly before the birth of my first child, I took my husband with me to the store to select the crib bedding, and what would be the foundation for our nursery theme. I had hoped that bringing him along would make him feel included in the preparations for our first child (and motivate him to finish the nursery). I should have left him at home. The moment he saw this Baby Looney Tunes mobile, his mind was made up on the nursery theme he wanted and my dreams of stars and moons were dashed. Well, maybe not. As it turned out, we found several Baby Looney Tunes items with stars and moons, and were able to make an effective compromise.

My husband’s love affair with Looney Tunes began as a child while watching Wylie Coyote chase the Roadrunner on tv. Remembering the often violent cartoons myself, I wasn’t sure this was the image I had in mind for the nursery, but Warner Brothers had already thought of moms like myself when they created Baby Looney Tunes. These little guys look the same as the favorites that I grew up with, only with more childlike features and diapers. The characters play, and get into mischief, but do not chase one another with the violence that they do in the original cartoon.

THE MOBILE
This mobile features four plush Baby Looney Tunes which rotate around a plush carrot. Included are Baby Tweety, Baby Daffy, Baby Bugs, and Baby Sylvester, all wearing white diapers. The mobile winds up, causing the characters to rotate while playing Brahms Lullaby. The music lasts about 7 minutes before you need to wind it again. The music is fairly soft, although you can get tired of hearing the same song over and over, and not as tinny sounding as some other wind up toys out there.

Although some assembly is required, it is a pretty simplistic mobile. Two arms link together leaving a place to hook the cross that holds the characters at the top and a place to bolt the mobile to the crib or wall at the bottom. Detailed instructions are included, but I don’t think we bothered looking at them. For crib mounting, no tools are necessary.

The mobile can be mounted a standard slatted crib (recommended for babies from birth to about 5 months, or when baby begins to push up on hands and knees), or on the wall (for babies 5 months to 18 months). For wall mounting, two screws are required, but not included. We opted not to hang it from the wall, and probably left it on the crib for longer than 5 months simply because our daughter left it completely alone. I finally took it down when she was able to stand in her crib.

CAUTIONS
A crib mobile is intended for visual stimulation and is not intended to be touched by the child. If placed where it can be touched, a child can become entangled and injured.

Perhaps I’m a bad mommy for leaving it up too long, but as I said, my daughter never touched the thing. I’m guessing my three month old, who is using it now, will be different.

The instructions also include all the other self explanatory cautions, such as warnings to attach the mobile securely to the crib and not to mount on soft sided cribs or playpens. Also, you are warned not to wind the music box too tightly.

CLEANING INSTRUCTIONS
Unfortunately, these characters are not machine washable. They are to be wiped with a soft dry cloth, but I didn’t find that this was an object that got very dirty since the characters weren’t chewed on or played with.

OUR EXPERIENCE
Like many toys, your success with this mobile depends entirely on the baby using it. Our oldest daughter didn’t really care about it, but our youngest lights up as soon as we place her under it and wind it. I wind it for her every time I put her down to sleep. However, only lasting about 7 minutes, I sometimes hear some fussing as soon as the music stops. Most of the time, though, it seems to lull her to sleep before the 7 minutes of music ends. Although I hate replacing batteries, I can see why some people would prefer a fancier mobile with batteries and a remote. Since Baby Daffy and Baby Sylvester have black and white, I noticed that both my kids watched them the most intently when they were newborns. I guess newborns really do prefer black and white.

This is one of those nursery items that I neither love nor hate. However, it does fit in nicely with our compromise – Baby Looney Tunes characters hanging over a crib with stars & moons bedding! Maybe my husband’s accompaniment on that shopping trip wasn’t so bad after all.