JOSEN
A 52 inch round ball pit with a shark design, pitched at the first-birthday end of the market and built for two years of daily use rather than one afternoon. Inflated ring walls, a separately inflated floor, and a pump in the box.
The shark face is on the outside wall and the fin stands proud of the rim, which makes it a thing a toddler recognises across a room — more useful than it sounds for getting a child to actually use something. Inside, the walls are plain and smooth with no seams in the contact zone.
Balls are not supplied. Fifty-two inches takes roughly four hundred standard pit balls to fill to a comfortable depth, and about two hundred for a shallow layer a one year old can sit in. Deflates to something you carry under one arm. Keep it off gravel and check the valves monthly.
Who it is for: small children and the adults who are tired of collecting balls from under the furniture. The walls are high enough to contain the experience, and the shark is the version that gets taken seriously by children who have decided they are too old for a ball pit.
Wipe it out monthly, because a ball pit collects more than balls. It folds to a flat disc and slides behind a sofa, which is the reason it stays in use rather than going to the loft. At a party it is the quiet corner that lets the smallest guests out of the scrum, and our guide to picking a first inflatable covers the age range honestly.
