Ikea Kitchen Set

Just bought a kitchen set from Ikea and thought I should talk about it a little… It is made of wood (mainly) with some battery operated hob features. The bottom part cost $129 and the upper shelf cost $49. Unfortunately, it does not come with accessories so I had to buy everything else separately. I have always wanted to get Sophie a proper kitchen set because she loves “cooking” since 15 months old. But they are either much too expensive or made to last probably at most, a week or two (based on how Sophie plays). So, imagine my excitement when I saw it at Ikea.



I guess Ikea can manufacture and sell it much cheaper because it is very much like a piece of furniture, just smaller. I feel that toy companies are ripping parents off with their super expensive kitchen set. Some are made of plastic (not even wood) and it can cost up to $300 a set. At first, Ah Boh saw it at Ikea a few months ago and wanted to buy for Sophie, but they were all sold out (too good a deal). Although it is technically meant for children 3 years and above, I know Sophie is ready and her birthday is in December. Perfect! However, it is really hard to assemble, with many small parts to put together… Who needs Handy Manny when we have Papa? Poor Papa, he took the entire afternoon to fix it up!



I did not want to overwhelm her with all the features of the kitchen set, so we started with something she was already quite familiar.



Next, we tried something new. I let her practice transferring with a pair of tongs. She had to remove the pair of tongs from a hook that is attached to the kitchen set and that took some practice. I was happy to see her manipulating the tongs so well (first attempt) because it meant we could try chopsticks soon.



When Sophie seemed comfortable with her kitchen set, I introduced her to the storage space below the hob and sink. We tried to take the pots and pots out for cooking and washing. I plan to take her through the steps of food preparation slowly until she can function independently.