Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The First Years Inside Scoop Suction Sectioned Plate

Calling the First Years Inside Scoop Suction Sectioned Plate "Crap" would be an insult to crap, because at least crap can be processed into fertilizer.

My wife ordered the a few of these plates in red and teal for our youngest son, who, being 18 months old at the time, was going though a phase of dumping food on the floor when he was, in his words, "All done!" We learned out of the box that we had to moisten the suction cup to get it to even attempt to adhere to the table for more than a minute or two. We then made the mistake of running one of them through the dishwasher on the top rack. The result was a permanent warp to the suction cup portion that left it incapable of maintaining a seal with anything short of glue.

Even the remaining plates which were dutifully hand washed had issues. They would pop up on their own without any intervention from us. The final nail in the coffin was when our youngest son learned that he could pop the suction and lift the plate up just by slipping a fingernail between the table and the suction cup. The suction cup is so flimsy that even that tiny intrusion was enough to pop it right off. The plate's key feature was easily defeated by a child in the target age group.

We still use the plates, but we do so with the awareness that instead of being something our toddler can't get off the table they're just plates that are annoying to wash.

On the bright side, we've never had trouble getting the plates off the table. They generally pop off on their own after a few minutes no matter what we do.  They've also encouraged us to make it a priority to teach our toddler to politely push away his plate when he's finished, instead of trying to dump it out. This tactic has proven far more useful than the plates.