Lovevery Play Kit Review: Is the $80/Month Subscription Worth It for Busy Dads?
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When you become a dad, you enter a new economy. It’s the toy economy. Random plastic things begin accumulating in your house at a rate you can’t fully explain. Some come from relatives who mean well. Some come from those in-store impulse purchases. Some appear to have materialized from nothing.
Lovevery’s pitch is that instead of a house full of random plastic, your baby gets a curated kit of developmental toys designed by child development experts, delivered every few months at the right stage. It costs around $80–$120 per shipment.
Is it worth it? I used it for my kid’s first two years, and I’ll give you the honest take — not the one the marketing brochure wants you to have.
What Is Lovevery?
Lovevery is a subscription toy company that ships “Play Kits” every 2–3 months from birth through age 4. Each kit is designed around specific developmental milestones for a particular age range — the toys in the 4-6 month kit are different from the ones in the 19-21 month kit, and they’re chosen based on what skills a baby is developing at that stage.
Every kit includes 4–7 toys or activities designed for the current developmental stage, a Play Guide booklet explaining why each item was included and how to use it, and a custom wooden or cloth toy (Lovevery leans toward natural materials).
What’s Actually in a Lovevery Play Kit?
Here’s an example from The Explorer kit (7-9 months), one of the most popular:
- Wooden ring stacker with an egg-shaped center (for spatial reasoning)
- Ball drop tower (cause-and-effect development)
- Object permanence box (when things disappear and come back)
- Silicone interlocking puzzle with chunky pieces
- Pull-along toy with visual tracking design
- Activity booklet with developmental notes
These aren’t toys you’d stumble onto at Target. They’re specifically designed to support fine motor skills, object permanence understanding, and spatial awareness at the 7-9 month stage. And the Play Guide actually helps you understand what your kid is working on, which is legitimately useful for new dads who didn’t study child development.
The Case FOR Lovevery
1. It removes the toy research burden
Baby toys are a minefield of misleading age labels and dubious developmental claims. Lovevery solves this. The curation is done by people who know what they’re talking about, and the Play Guide explains why each toy exists. For a busy dad who doesn’t have time to research child development stages, this is genuinely valuable.
2. The quality is noticeably better
Lovevery toys are mostly made from sustainably sourced wood, organic cotton, and food-grade silicone. They don’t have cheap plastic parts that break in week two. They don’t have sharp edges. They don’t have 47 AA batteries. Compare this to the random plastic toys that make noise and break after two weeks, and the quality gap is real.
3. The Play Guide is underrated
Every kit comes with a detailed guide explaining the developmental science behind each toy. Knowing that the reason my kid is obsessed with dropping things is because they’re developing object permanence — not because they’re trying to drive me crazy — actually changes how you engage with them. New dads often feel uncertain about how to actually play with an infant. The Play Guide removes the guesswork.
4. Resale value is surprisingly good
Lovevery kits hold their value exceptionally well secondhand. A kit you paid $80–100 for can sell on Facebook Marketplace for $40–60. Over two years, if you sell each kit after use, your effective cost per kit drops significantly.
The Case AGAINST Lovevery
1. $80–$120 per kit adds up fast
Lovevery ships roughly 6 kits per year for the first two years. At $80–$100 per kit, you’re looking at $480–$600 per year. Over two full years, that’s nearly $1,000. Is that reasonable for high-quality developmental toys? Maybe. But it’s worth being clear-eyed about the total spend before subscribing.
2. Babies don’t always respect the schedule
The kits arrive every 2–3 months. Your baby’s development doesn’t always sync with the shipping schedule. The good news: Lovevery’s website lets you adjust your subscription timing based on your baby’s actual development.
3. It gets less impressive after 18 months
The 0–18 month range is where Lovevery shines brightest. After 18–24 months, the content starts to feel more like slightly upscale versions of things you could find at a toy store. My honest take: Subscribe for the first 18 months. Evaluate after that.
4. Your baby might not care
Some babies fixate on a $3 set of measuring cups from your kitchen drawer and ignore the $90 worth of carefully engineered developmental toys. Babies are irrational. The Lovevery toys are well-designed, but there’s no guarantee your specific baby will prefer them to cardboard boxes and spatulas.
Is Lovevery Worth It? The Dad’s Verdict
Yes, for ages 0–18 months. The curation, quality, and especially the Play Guide are genuinely valuable in those early stages. You save hours of toy research. The quality is meaningfully better than most alternatives. The resale market softens the cost.
Questionable after 24 months. At this point, your toddler has opinions, preferences, and specific obsessions. Curated developmental kits compete with those specific interests and don’t always win.
Worth doing the math on resale. If you’re disciplined about selling each kit after use, the effective cost per kit can drop to $30–$50 — which makes the value proposition much stronger.
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Alternatives to Lovevery
If Lovevery’s price point is too high:
KiwiCo Panda Crate (0–3 years, ~$30/month) — More STEM-focused, less premium materials, lower price. A good alternative if you want curation at lower cost. CHECK KIWICO
Melissa & Doug toys (sold individually) — If you just want quality toys without the subscription, Melissa & Doug offers excellent quality at Target, Amazon, and direct. CHECK MELISSA & DOUG
