Dido The Dragon!

by:  Rev. James G.W. Fisher - Product Evaluation Specialist

Product Evaluation Summary Date:  11/03/2008

Experience the wonder of Dido the Dragon! Bright colors, fun sounds, and a movable tail, Dido is sure to delight. Dido is even equipped with a chariot style seat to help keep your child secure. Dido provides the elements a child needs to enjoy a wonderful journey of fantasy and fun!

   Evaluation Summary - Category Ratings

	Trade Industry Sales Types Wholesale  Retail  Reseller  Online

	Safety / Quality Classifications

CE Marked	UL Approved	JPMA Certified
	(Not Applicable)
ASTM Compliant	eco-Friendly	eco-Conscious

CPSIA Compliant	Independent Lab Tested	Independent Lab Name
	(Unconfirmed)
LeadSafe™ - Surface Coatings/Paint (Complies with 16 CFR 1303/CPSIA 101)	LeadSafe™ - Content / Substrates (Complies with CPSIA 101)	PhthalatesSafe™ (Complies with CPSIA 108)
(Not Applicable)		(Not Applicable)

BPASafe™ (Complies with CPSI EN71)	Soluble Heavy Metals (Complies with ASTM F963/CPSIA 106)	Mechanical/Physical (Complies with ASTM F963/CPSIA 106)
	(Not Applicable)	(Not Applicable)
Flammability - Solids/Textiles (Complies with 16 CFR 1500.44/CFR 1610)	Labeling of Hazardous Art Materials (Complies with ASTM-4236/16 CFR 1500.14(b)(8) )	iWatchDog™ Approved (Complies with ICCS™ Certification Standards)

Back in the day, so long ago, rocking horses, otherwise referred to as Hobby Horses, were THE thing for a child. Although they were fun and the hottest thing ever for a toddler, there was always a risk for a child. All too often they would get their fingers hurt in the springs which suspended the rocking horse from the ground. Well, that was then and this is now. Rocking horses have evolved into creative new designs never before imagined while at the same time far safer than ever before. They have even evolved into an entirely new realm of rocking horses which are designed specifically for toddlers.

Dido the Dragon!, produced by Dayla Baby, is one of these new creations for toddlers which provides a delightful and safe experience for a toddler. What adds the extra value to Dido the Dragon! is the fact of how he also serves as a tool to stimulate critical skill development and essential motor skills. The life experience of play for a toddler is a direct and critical influence on what the rest of a child's life will have in store for them. Dido the Dragon! is undoubtedly a positive influence you can appreciate for your child.

Dido the Dragon! has so much more to offer than just being a rocker; he/she has plenty of added features that will entertain your child for hours on end! To start off with, when a child rocks Dido the Dragon! they will suddenly hear classical music seeming to literally come out of the air! To add even further excitement for a child, they will discover fancy shapes embroidered all over Dido the Dragon! along with the various shapes of his wings and other features which stimulate a child both visually and through tactile touch. This is just the beginning of where Dido contributes substantially to a child's critical skill development while playing with him/her.

While a child is rocking on Dido the Dragon! or when they are just playing with him, they can play with his big huge tail which can be manipulated to various directions by the child. Dido the Dragon! is sure to be special for a child with all of these features. You may be surprised, but there are even more important features such as the incredible seat which was carefully designed to support a child's body effectively with minimal to low impact on their spine and other areas of the body. The unique placement and shape of the sort of pocket seat provides additional support for the younger toddlers while at the same time adding a greater sense of security. This is a feature that you do not see so evident with our other two rockers. While the seat safety is a prime concern, so are the rocker arms which Dido the Dragon! is attached to. They are made of a Russian pine composite which delivers added strength to endure the wear and tear a child can put a rocket through during their play time. You can rest assured that there is no risk of breakage under normal wear and tear with these rocker arms.

There's Even More!

If we haven't shown enough already about why Dido the Dragon! is so great, there is an additional feature of the rocker arms which wasn't covered earlier. A toddler's rate of growth seems like a flash in the night and the folks at Dayla Baby took this into consideration. The two wooden blocks which Dido the Dragon! rests upon are designed with a very special purpose. These blocks can turned to a vertical position as a child not only gets older, but bigger as well, to provide greater height for Dido the Dragon!. Essentially, Dido can in a sense grow with your child. Instead of being a product which is used for a short period of time then no longer being practical to use, Dido the Dragon! can continue to be a part of your child's play time and development!

With every product we evaluate, they each have guidelines for their evaluation which are specific to each particular product. Obviously, a rocking chairs/animals are rather unique and are evaluated under completely different guidelines and standards than say a toy, game, or plush doll. In the process of evaluating Dido the Dragon! and the other rockers, our evaluators were finding the opportunity quite enjoyable, especially from the professional standpoint. For these evaluators, to see a product such as Dido the Dragon! so well designed, it provides a generous level of comfort. Dido the Dragon! and the other Dayla Baby rockers were the first rockers for toddlers to be submitted for our evaluation under our newer and more strict evaluation guidelines.

Dido the Dragon! was pushed to the limits in weight capability, pressure per square inch on the wood materials, and many other angles in the evaluation, yet it still came through without even coming close to failure in its scoring. Dido the Dragon! must have been miserable in our evaluation due to we really put him/her through some really tough levels of evaluation. Weight far in excess of the maximum recommended allowable weight was applied to Dido the Dragon! continuously for an extended period of time as it was being back and forth repeatedly. Push, pull, squeeze, drop...you name it, Dido the Dragon! went through it repeatedly and often times simultaneously, to bring maximum allowable forces of strain into the evaluation of Dido the Dragon!

Our design engineer evaluator made us all feel quite good when he provided his report and verbal feedback as well. "There is no question in the slightest of any sort as far as the design quality of this rocker as well as the others from the same company. They are all designed to last the very worst of abuse and still maintain their integrity with virtually no risk of injury to a child. From the viewpoint of a design engineer, it was quite a pleasure to see such a fine quality of design such as this which I can feel comfortable in giving approval."

Now the results from our design engineer satisfy our demands for quality and multiple other factors, yet at the same time we cannot ignore the level of positive influence that Dido the Dragon! creates with the consumers. For Dido the Dragon! and the other rockers from Dayla Baby, we called upon the help of a Child Psychologist, PhD and her husband who is a Pediatrician.

Child Pyschologist, PhD | Pediatrician - "From my own personal review of the videotapes and evaluation of the rockers, these products serve well as a very strong positive influence on the primary behavior of a child. Intellectual thought, emotion, visual appeal, and auditory stimulation are all contributed substantially with Dido the Dragon! and the other rockers. Both my husband and myself are in full agreement on this and feel this is the kind of product which needs to be used more readily in both home and educational environments today.

My husband made some comments from a pediatrician's viewpoint...A child should be able to use a product with minimal difficulty and these products fulfill that need. These rockers provide a very strong contribution to a child's healthy physical play environment and overall motor skill development far greater than many others I see on the market today. The idea of the blocks to raise the rocker to a higher level not only provides added value to the product, but contributes quite substantially to the physical betterment of a child for a far greater period of time."

As with many of our reports we get from our independent evaluators, this couple provided a wealth of informative details which we would love to publish with this product evaluation summary, but simply would not be feasible. The bottom line here is that both our design engineer, the child psychologist and the pediatrician provided more than enough information we needed to assist us in determining if Dido the Dragon! has what it takes to pass our evaluation.

Consumers seem to thrive on the products we provide for hands-on consumer evaluation and are more than eager to be blunt in their opinions. Shall we see where "Dido the Dragon!" and his friends stand in the evaluation from our hands-on consumer evaluation?

There couldn't possibly be a better location to perform our hands-on consumer evaluation of products than a busy shopping center, and a local private school, in the Fall in Las Vegas. We decided to take Dido the Dragon!, two other Dayla Baby toddler rockers, and a variety of other products to a major sized as well as busy shopping center in the Summerlin area, (part of Las Vegas), and a private school facility to get real feedback from consumers and kids via hands-on evaluation, AND capture everything on video. We couldn't possibly have made a better decision!

The private school was our first stop and Dido the Dragon! was absolutely the favorite as far as the rockers go. Every child there wanted to have a chance to ride Dido and create their own fantasy world as they travel on their creative adventure with Dido the Dragon! The teachers and facility director were most impressed with all of the products we had to offer, but Dido the Dragon! was by far their favorite above all others. One of the teachers commented that, "The kids seem to go into their own world while on the Dido the Dragon! rocker. The boys liked the rocket rocker a lot but the Dido the Dragon! rocker was the one that won their hearts. I can definitely see some possible use of this product in our facility." The teachers' comment was uplifting and added just that more to demonstrating the true value of Dido the Dragon!

At both locations we were busy as a bee and had plenty of comments provided whether from a child, a teacher, or a tourist. Normally we can handle things pretty well in this segment of our evaluation but at the shopping center we never imagined what we were about to endure. One thing for sure about children, especially toddlers, they are outspoken and stubborn. When they have something they are enjoying playing with, a simple telling them they have to get off of it so another child can try it out is not acceptable to the toddlers. There were plenty of kids having fun, yet at the same time our staff were having to put out fires with toddlers who refused to get off the rockers while another parent and child were becoming impatient, waiting for their turn with the rocker they wanted to try out. One of the children was being quite difficult in trying to get him off of Wollie Whale!, one of our 3 Dayla Baby rockers, yet in his own unique way being humorous at the same time. The toddler had but two words to say redundantly.."Mine" and "NO!!". This child was determined that he was not going to get off of Wollie Whale! and that Wollie Whale! was going to go home with him. Eventually the child's Dad stepped in and pulled him off with a bit of a struggle, but he finally got the child off of the rocker.

The positive side of the situation is that we couldn't have had a more perfect example of the level of popularity that Wollie Whale! and the other two rockers were creating. In reviewing our videos, we promptly discovered that Dido the Dragon! as well as the other two rockers were a genuine hit and then some for the parents and children alike. We even caught a few parents sitting on Dido the Dragon! and the other rockers! Despite their weight, no damage occurred and the durability of Dido the Dragon! was made quite clear to everyone. Dido the Dragon! passed this segment of our evaluation with flying colors.

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While other organizations will define their ratings in a "blanket" method which simply defines each rating in an overall usage, we choose to take a different approach. Each individual rating that was assigned to this product, based upon our evaluation process, is briefly explained as to how that specific rating score was reached. The ratings for this product are listed below.

EVALUATION RESULTS - From evaluation for induction into "The Toy Man® Product Guide"
Overall Rating:  5	Seal of Approval: Approved	eco-Recognition™ Seal: Not Eligible	Award of Excellence: Approved	eChoice™ Award: Selected

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