My 1 year old adores this toy. He is huggably soft and happily takes a lot of knocks and bumps from her without harm. He is also surface washable so mucky rusk hands dont cause a problem. For the price I would thoroughly recommend this toy as it hasnt left my daughters side since she was given it, he says quite a lot of phrases that arent annoyingly repetitive and there are little tunes from the childrens show too. It isnt so loud that it becomes annoying either, so the fact there is no volume control doesnt matter at all, it becomes back ground noise and is so delightful I find myself encouraging her to play. The button to start the sound is in his tummy, and not that easy for the smaller tots to locate, but as she grows I'm sure it'll be a breeze. If you do grow tired of him, there is a switch hidden at the back to turn him off, but you wont need it... All in all, this toy is SO loved, she has the De Li too, and loves her equally :)