Pop Up Ball Pit

Bundle of Ball Blast Fun

• What: Kuuqa Kids Toddler Ball Pit
• When: 12 months and up
• Why: Affordable, compact storage
• Where: Amazon

I invested a whopping $12 or so in Kuuqa Kids Ball Pit for my son’s second birthday because of his obsession with balls of any kind. I dumped in our entire ball bin’s contents and added another 100 balls courtesy of Amazon and we had a party in our living room.

My kids still play with the ball pit. I kept it because it will fold up and store flat, so even though it takes up a lot of real estate, it stores easily. Honestly, we got our money’s worth that first week of his birthday, though we’ve used it plenty since then.

We have the fancy upgraded version which comes with a basketball hoop. I don’t think that’s necessary, but it shipped in time for his birthday party once I decided to bite the bullet and buy it. I don’t regret it, even when I’m stepping around the loaded ball pit trying to get through the house.

The hexagon polyester material (similar to the Dream Tent) unfolds to create a space about four feet across in any direction with walls just high enough that toddlers can get over them, but have to concentrate to do it. Should your child fall, the walls collapse and no one, including the ball pit, suffers. Bigger kids have no issues hopping in and out. My four and six year olds loved it almost as much as my two year old when it made its debut at our house, and well over a year later they all still love it and can fit into it.

We kept it set up in our living room for much longer than we should have, two to three months at least, and it enjoyed daily use until I got tired of the pit taking up so much space. One hundred balls takes up less room than you might think. Then I discovered that for one kid, you can fold in one of the hexagon sides and create a smaller square instead. That downsizing allowed us to keep it set up even longer and raises the ball level even with the same number of balls inside, but still leaves plenty of room for one kid to have a blast.

The netting around the basketball goal has one small hole in it after a year and a half of periodic use. I suspect my repeated unsuccessful attempts to get the ball pit back into its zippered bag, which comes with it, has more to do with that than anything else. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten the bag fully zipped with the ball pit inside, but we store it against the wall behind an easy chair and it stays put. The folding process is complicated enough that Amazon provides an image and instruction video on the product page, but I layer and twist and it gets small enough for our purposes without the need for a degree in engineering.