The Little Live Pets Mama Surprise lets your child nurture a guinea pig until she gives birth to three cute babies.
Mama guinea pig comes in a hutch and makes 20+ different sounds and reactions as kids interact with the toy.
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Quick verdict
The Little Live Pets Mama Surprise is a cool interactive toy where kids can care for a mother guinea pig and enjoy as one by one, her three babies are born.
It’s great that you can reload the toy and kids can go through the process again.
The toy is a great gift for kids who love animals and crave one of their own.
The big downside is the price (£64.99) and I think kids at the upper age range for who this is aimed at (4-7 years) will get bored quickly.
Also the instruction leaflet is a little messy and hard to follow.
What is Mama Surprise
Children must pet the mama guinea pig and feed her.
When she’s been cared for enough, the mama guinea pig will signal – with sounds and lights on the toy and hutch – that it’s time for her babies to arrive.
The three adorable baby guinea pigs come with cool surprises for kids to dress them up with.
They drop from a series of three compartments in the ceiling of the hutch, one at a time.
Kids will enjoy styling the baby’s hair and seeing the mama guinea pig’s reactions to their feeding and petting her.
Once all of the babies have been born, kids can either play with the little family or reload the hutch and care for the mama until the babies are revealed all over again.
What’s included with Mama Surprise
Each baby comes with:
- 2 elastic bands
- Hair clip
- Sunglasses, glasses or tiara
- Birth certificate
- Surprise box
Mama guinea pig comes with:
- Food (a piece of celery)
- Heart-shaped brush
- Hutch and shredded paper bedding
Batteries are not included with Mama Surprise.
You will need six AAA batteries before you can get started – with three for the hutch (battery compartment is at the top, the screw to open the panel is underneath the carry handle) and three in the mama guinea pig.
How Mama Surprise works
Wondering how Mama Surprise actually works? If you struggled like I did with following the instructions then this easy guide to getting started with Mama Surprise will help!
- The mama guinea pig has an on/off switch underneath her where the battery pack is. You need to switch her on.
- The hutch has an on/off switch at the back. This switch has options for both “normal” and “fast” mode. Using fast mode means all of the babies can be born in less than an hour, whereas with normal there is a 10 hour gap between babies two and three (so this draws the process out over a couple of days).
- Once both the guinea pig and hutch are on, your child can start to play. They need to pet the mama guinea pig on the head where there is a sensor and feed her the celery by placing it in her mouth (where there is a button that can also be triggered if your child puts their finger there). Every time your child pets or feeds the guinea pig, there will be a sound in reaction.
- Eventually the mama guinea pig will make a “ready” sound and her heart will start to glow. The heart on the hutch will also glow and flash.
- Place the mama guinea pig into the hutch and close the doors (closing the doors properly is crucial).
- After 10 minutes the first baby guinea pig will drop down from the ceiling.
- Your child then needs to nurture the mama guinea pig again until she’s ready for the next baby to born and then repeat the process again until all three babies are born.
Reloading the Mama Surprise Guinea Pig
Once all the babies are born then your child can play with the guinea pig family and the hutch. Or you can reload all the babies and their surprises into the hutch and start the process all over again.
In order to reload the hutch you need to open the compartment on top of the hutch. Open the small panel in the middle of the roof and you’ll see a padlock symbol. Switch it to unlock and you’ll be able to open the large panel.
Here you’ll see the compartments where the baby guinea pigs have come from. Place them back inside – one in each compartment.
If Mama Surprise stops working, it could be that the babies have blocked the compartment.
When reloading, watch out to make sure the babies don’t block the turning mechanism.
This happened to me and it jammed with the trap door shut. I forced the turning circle back into place and it fixed it. It’s best not to let little kids reload this for that reason.
What age is Little Live Pets Mama Surprise for?
Little Live Pets says this is only for kids aged 4+, and ideally is aimed at kids aged 4 to 7.
I would say it’s perfect for children aged 4 to 6.
My eldest was 7 when she first got the toy and I would say this fascinates her as she loves animals, but it’s not really enough to hold her attention.
Overall verdict
The Little Live Pets Mama Surprise Guinea Pig is quite a high price point for a toy.
The way it works is pretty cool and appeals to kids who love to role play caring for animals.
It has that nice element of realism to it with the mama guinea pig reacting to being cared for, and the arrival of the babies.
The fact you can repeat the whole unboxing process as many times as they want is great – many unboxing surprise reveal toys don’t allow you to do that.
Storing the toy is easy and everything goes back into the hutch, which closes up neatly.
I would say it’s an ideal gift for little animal lovers and they will absolutely adore it, but I do wince a little at the price.
I would have hoped the toys themselves would have a slightly better look, as it is they’re quite plastic around the face.
Also the mama guinea pig isn’t quite as cuddly as you would like, the body is quite floppy and flimsy.
It’s perfect if your child is desperate for a pet but you don’t have space or time to give that to them just yet.
Looking for another cool interactive toy for kids? Try the Amazon Fire Tablet Kids Edition and the Amazon Echo Dot.
