Manhattan Toy Skwish Classic

This toy is exciting and always catches the attention of my daughter who has had it for a few months now (we got it for her when she was three months old). It makes noise when moved around, the colors are enticing and it is easy for her to hold onto and chew on. The only thing that makes me nervous is the paint job on the wood seems like it could be a little porous in places, but in the description it says that it is safe for children to chew on so I truly hope that it is. I bought a lead testing kit and will absolutely update this review once I test the paint if it comes up positive! She really loves it and it's a cool design, so fingers crossed it is legitimately a safe product.

My baby loves this toy and I love this toy. It really does squish, the beads make a rattle, and it seems easy for little one to grab onto.

Developmentally one of the best toys for babies. They can snag it in sidelying and transfer it hand to hand when lying on their backs. Very engaging. Used one in my therapy practice for years and bought ones for each of my newborn grandchildren. Would probably not allow them to chew on the wooden balls, but they dont seem interested in mouthing this toy as a general rule.

What a wonderful toy! It is colorful, lightweight, and well built. My grandson has played with it every day since he was three months old. Well before he could grasp, he was staring at it and then accidentally hitting it when his arms flailed about. Now, at five months, he is able to reach for it, grasp it in different ways, and squeeze it. It is his best motivation to move his body toward an object. At times we have hung it on a ribbon in his baby gym so he could bat at it. But mostly he loves to hold, squeeze, and mouth it. For adult appreciation, someone thought through the design quite thoroughly so that it has related color pairs in geometrically opposed positions. The sound of the rattle is a pleasant wooden clunking. My grandson bursts out giggling when we shake the rattle in the air and drop it so it bounces gently on the sofa. What a find! This is a great gift for a baby shower.

This is a classic kids toy that most kids will love. I purchased this because it is an excellent example of Tensegrity. I use this as a teaching tool in my massage practice to help people understand what tensegrity is and how your fascia works in your body.

First off, I absolutely love Manhattan Toy products! That said, I’m going to say the same thing about this one as I said about another similar Manhattan Toy that I bought my son for his first birthday: the toy itself gets 5 stars, no question. However, if I were rating how much my son liked it, I would give it probably 2 1/2 stars because unfortunately, my one-year-old isn’t as thrilled about it as I am ☹️. He’s thrown it around a little bit, stepped on it a few times, shaken it once or twice, but other than that it’s gotten very little attention (from him) in the month or so since I bought it. Me, on the other hand .. I love it! I find it very aesthetically pleasing — the colors aren’t too dull or too bright — it’s made of a wonderfully soft, almost rubbery wood & it really is as elastic & squishy as they claim! I could literally spend hours just mindlessly squishing it, shaking it, or passing it from hand to hand. Another big plus is that because it’s such a well-made toy, I don’t see it breaking anytime soon, which means there’s lots of time yet for my son to fall in love with it! This has happened with a number of his other toys (possibly because he was born 6 weeks early so sometimes it can take a minute for him to catch up to what other kids his age are into). So, all that said, I would still buy it again .. it’s just one of those toys that you can really feel good about buying for your little one. Plus, what adult doesn’t love a toy they can play with, too?! Please let me know if you found this review helpful, as I also rely heavily on others’ reviews when purchasing items online 🙂.

I bought this as a "fidget", an object to fidget with. The bright primary colors and the high quality wood material instead of cheap plastic combined with the structure of this toy attracted me to it. The unique shape, bright colors, and beads sliding up and down the rods are fascinating to look at while the squishy aspect reminds me of a stress (squeeze) ball but this is way more interesting than most of the more generic looking office desk accessory type stress toys. You can flatten it in any direction and it bounces back to its original shape. It seems durable and designed to stand up to a lot of squeezing, squishing, flattening, rattling, and rolling. I would recommend the Skwish for all ages because as a unique multi-sensory object, it can be enjoyed by anyone, adults as well as children. I have noticed that the Amazon product recommendations are the only ones where the Skwish is recommended solely as a baby rattle. Educational toy stores sell it at a much higher price but they advertise it as a manipulative toy for children of all ages or give an age range of "0-99".

My daughter is OBSESSED with this toy!! She will be so entertained with it for 30-45 minutes which is amazing for a baby her age, usually she looses interest within 10 minutes. Its easy for her to grab the various bars and strings and swing it around without hurting herself since its so light weight. Shes caught herself in the eye a few times but its so gentle she doesn’t even notice lolZ. I was pleasantly surprised with the durability. Since everything goes into her mouth at this age i yanked on the balls with pretty significant force to test it and they didn’t budge at all!! I still wont leave her unattended with it but i feel comfortable with her exploring it with her mouth and hands. Using this toy has greatly improved her hand eye coordination as well as her grasping skills; a must have for all babies in my opinion!