Shortly after Thanksgiving last year, I took advantage of a great $50 deal on a Little Tikes play kitchen that is regularly roughly $90 to $125.
However, while scoring the great deal was easy, putting the kitchen together took a little more work. My husband and I spent the duration of my then 16-month-old daughter’s afternoon nap assembling the new toy.
As all parents with napping kids know, naptime is some of the only free time you’ll get. So, when I next bought my daughter toys requiring assembly – the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe and Little Tikes easel – I knew I didn’t want to spend precious naptime or time with my daughter doing toy assembly.
Luckily, I hit on an easier and less time-intensive toy assembly method that is today’s hint. The strategy: Hire a TaskRabbit. They aren’t just helpful for kids’ birthday party clean up, furniture assembly and first-year photo book making. They’re great at putting toys together too.
Here’s what I did: I hired a TaskRabbit with extensive furniture assembly experience to come by one evening and put the two toys together. I posted links to the toy instructions in my job posting, so the TaskRabbit knew to come by with the required tools.
My daughter happily playing in her Little Tikes “car.”
To me, the $56 (plus tip) I spent was well worth it. The TaskRabbit was able to do the assembly job much better and quicker than my husband and I could, and we didn’t have to worry about finding – and spending – time to put the toy together. Plus, I made sure to look for deals when I bought the toys in the first place, so I figured I wasn’t really losing money.
To be sure, I’m not the first parent to hire a TaskRabbit for toy assembly help.
On its blog back in 2011, TaskRabbit suggested hiring a “little elf” (aka a TaskRabbit) to put Christmas toys together after the holiday, sharing a toy assembly task that one mom had posted. And I came across a host of tasks similar to the one I posted on TaskRabbit.com, for everything from Cozy Coupe to tricycle to Barbie Dream House assembly.
What are your tricks for making toy assembly a little easier and less time intensive?
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