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We are big fans over here of interactive play and helping our son feel included and able to participate in what we are doing as a family - and we are especially excited to have him be a part of cooking and baking and food prep in the future! I have wanted to get one of these toddler kitchen towers for a long time, but often could not justify the price for the beautiful wooden ones that I would see all over Instagram. So I was very excited when a friend posted about one that she got as a gift for a much more reasonable cost.

After some brief searching, I found this toddler stand for our kitchen from Walmart for an incredibly low price - just under $40! This one is made out of sturdy plastic instead of wood but has great reviews and since I knew someone that personally had it, I didn’t hesitate one bit to purchase one for our home.

The setup was easy enough - mostly because I put my husband in charge of the whole thing. 😅 It only required a screwdriver to put the pieces together and our son was more than happy to be dad’s sidekick and help with the setup process. It took under 10 minutes for my husband to put it all together. Our son was very eager to be a part of each process of this new stool that was just for him and was eager to climb all over it even before it was finished.

We weren’t surprised that by the end of breakfast the following day, our son had mastered climbing into the kitchen buddy tower and also learned to get down and crawl out of it as well. He still has his moments where he is a bit unsure of what exactly he needs to do to get himself down, but we are always right there to help him out if he needs it. We’ve only had one tumble so far and that was while I was right next to him. He had his hands full with an empty milk jug and took a step back and slid right under the safety bar and fell backward. Thankfully, his head hit on the kitchen mat rather than directly on the floor. (Just one more reason that I am so thankful for the kitchen mats we received as a gift this past Christmas!) Hopefully, as he had a better awareness of climbing up and down this kitchen tower, there will be fewer tumbles.

The only major downside to having a kitchen tower is all of the space that it takes up. We currently have ours up against our kitchen island and since our island is also white, it doesn’t feel like it stands out too much or gets in the way too often. We do make sure that we are always watching if our son goes into the kitchen, or we close the doors to the kitchen so that he can’t climb by himself right now. And of course, we need to be more careful of what we place on that end of the kitchen island now! While it does take up a good bit of space in our kitchen, we still find it to have great value and love that he is already set for success with helping us in the kitchen and being a part of the action! When we feel we no longer need the entire tower, we can easily remove the top part and use it just as a stepping stool in the future. Win-win!

I’m really looking forward to the future as our toddler becomes even more aware of his surroundings and ability to help us to cook and bake and really allow our time in the kitchen to be a whole-family event. I already have a few ideas of items that I would love to get to help instill a love of cooking in our child - like a kid-friendly wooden knife and chopping board set, a mini apron, and some other small silicone utensils that will be easy for his little hands to hold.