floor mats (for padding)

Okay, so it seems that everyone in the world uses those ubiquitous "ABC" puzzle mats -- brightly colored for the little ones, a little padding to protect their heads, and voila, you have a good thing going, right? So how come all of them that I have EVER seen advertise as being safe for ages 3 and up, because of smaller pieces to the puzzle that present a choking hazard? I figured, hey, everyone uses them, the kids aren't going to be using them as a puzzle at this point, just as padding on those hardwood floors, and I FINALLY found some that are more primary colored than pastel colored...got 'em...put 'em together...and lo and behold it doesn't take the level of dexterity to take them apart that I thought it would. DD and DS absolutely went to town on the thing instantly. So, while they demonstrated their unhappiness with my decision, I packed the puzzle mats right back up and plan to send them back. Am I wrong about this? Did I just get a bum set of mats? What do you do?

All I want, really, is something that will protect them (what with the rolling, crawling, and pulling up), protect the floors (I want this thing to sit under the playyard), and not cost hundreds of dollars. It would be nice, too, if it wasn't offensive to me to look at. Does such a thing exist?

 

Okay, so it seems that everyone in the world uses those ubiquitous "ABC" puzzle mats -- brightly colored for the little ones, a little padding to protect their heads, and voila, you have a good thing going, right? So how come all of them that I have EVER seen advertise as being safe for ages 3 and up, because of smaller pieces to the puzzle that present a choking hazard? I figured, hey, everyone uses them, the kids aren't going to be using them as a puzzle at this point, just as padding on those hardwood floors, and I FINALLY found some that are more primary colored than pastel colored...got 'em...put 'em together...and lo and behold it doesn't take the level of dexterity to take them apart that I thought it would. DD and DS absolutely went to town on the thing instantly. So, while they demonstrated their unhappiness with my decision, I packed the puzzle mats right back up and plan to send them back. Am I wrong about this? Did I just get a bum set of mats? What do you do?

All I want, really, is something that will protect them (what with the rolling, crawling, and pulling up), protect the floors (I want this thing to sit under the playyard), and not cost hundreds of dollars. It would be nice, too, if it wasn't offensive to me to look at. Does such a thing exist?

 

Have you seen the Giant Floor Puzzle mats from Alex Toys? I ordered them for Christmas presents for my boys. They won a couple of "Toy of the Year Awards" and were featured on the Today show recently. They list the age as newborn and up. I bought both the "Farm" and "House" versions - they are really cute. They cost $25 and you can find them at www.alextoys.com

 

I have plain primary colored puzzle mats I found at Lowes that don't have any puzzle componants other than the big squares linking together...

 

I have them and am using them ... and whiel they do take them apart, there are only a few pieces that are small so I will take those out of it when they start making that a priority of their playtime on the mat. right now it is just a staging area in their room. I saw today a set of ABCs and that the age was 3+ but thought it was because of something special in it -- it talked!

Anyway, I'll check out the PPs ideas.

 

We've had one of those up for over a month. It's excellent in that it's softer and more protective than our hard tile floor. However, it's a real pain to clean - especially as our two still spit up a lot.

And, as you point out, all those little bits ... I spent an hour one afternoon,gluing all the smaller bits (the choking-hazard ones that "can fit inside a toilet roll") into bigger pieces so that our two can't get them up.

If you're thinking of doing the same, it works fine for now, but I was told that I should have used a more flexible glue (like 'rubber glue' or something) rather than superglue which is too brittle and won't hold for long.

On balance I'm very happy with the mat and would be reluctant to take it up ...
lisa

 

I got the abc puzzle mats at 1 yr. and they didn't work! The kids tore them apart!! Go to Sam's Club. They have a multicolored one that is working MUCH better for me!!!

 

I use plain blue interlocking ones from Toys R Us.

 

We took the chokey-sized pieces out of our puzzle mat. There weren't that many pieces and the mat is still very effective.

 

Thanks, everyone. I think I'll order from Lowes or TRU and go with those -- it's too bad they don't seem to come with sides/edges but hey, you can't have everything! Lowes also seems to have an ABC mat that, from the picture, has no little pieces at all (just the alphabet) so maybe I'll give those a try. This playyard area is pretty big and I want to get something underneath it ASAP!