**Post edit** – I have now updated this post with all those troubleshooting questions, How long does it take for Hatchimals to hatch? How to get my Hatchimal out of the egg and many more.
There is a brand new toy on the block and we have been lucky enough to get our hands on one, you may have caught our Twitter chat on ‘Hatch Day’ where we hatched our Hatchimals , so now it time to let you all know a little more about this much talked about toy in our review.
The packaging for Hatchimals is very cute, there is a picture of the egg on the front of the box along with a picture of the various Hatchimals available inside and it looks as if the egg is poking out of the top of the box – Of course the kids thought this was the actual egg, as did I, so they were stroking and petting it.
Opening the lid carefully reveals that it is actually a faux top and the egg is securely inside plastic packaging. Careful remove the tape from the packaging and then you will need to unscrew the plastic screws from the egg base. Unscrewing these activates the egg – this means it won’t work until unscrewed which also means the batteries won’t run out while it’s in the box. Once you unscrew these your egg will activate – you will hear it and see the flashing eyes – if this doesn’t happen then shake it a little, rub the egg and play with it. Your Hatchimals Egg doesn’t need turning on, this automatically happens when you remove the clips at the bottom, if by any chance your Hatchimals Egg doesn’t turn on then sadly it is faulty.
What is a hatchimal?
Hatchimals are interactive toys which come inside an egg, you need to play with the egg to awaken the toy inside, play games through the shell and eventually the creature will break free from the shell and you can play with it.
There are two types of Hatchimals available: A Draggle and a Penguala and each of these come in different colours. The Hatchimals eggs are different colours but what is inside each egg is a secret until hatched.
Hatching:
The different thing about this toy is that you have to hatch it from its packaging – the egg and to do so you need to play with it.
There are 3 parts to the actual egg – the bottom (base), the middle and the top. Through the egg you will see your Hatchimals eyes flashing. They flash different colours depending on what you need to do next in the hatching stage – you play with the toy to progress to the next level which in this case is hatching.
You’ll need the colour tips and tricks guide handy to work out what your pet needs.
Pink eyes = Hear my heartbeat. You’ll need to hold the bottom of the egg Red eyes = Annoyed/Upset. Rub the bottom of your egg Orange eyes = Needs to burp. Pat the bottom of the egg Flashing orange eyes = Has the hiccups. Tap on the egg to scare them away Yellow eyes = Exploring. Interact with your Hatchimal in different ways Green = Sick. Rub the bottom of the egg or tilt to make me sneeze Light Blue = Cold. Rub the egg to warm it up Dark Blue = Scared.Rub the bottom of the egg or knock on the shell White = Tired. Your Hatchimal will start snoring, wake it by interacting with it Lights Off = Listening. Knock on the egg and your Hatchimal with play by knocking back.
It says on the box that this stage is around 20/25 minutes but it is definitely longer. Ours was in the egg playing stage for around 40 minutes and then once we got to the hatching stage it was around another 30 minutes to hatch. I have had friends report theirs have taken over an hour to get to the hatching stage.
If you want to turn off the egg at all you turn it upside down for 8 seconds, turn it back on by holding the bottom although I found knocking on the base of the egg repeatedly worked best.
Hatching, How long does it take for Hatchimals to hatch?
Rainbow lights appear when your Hatchimals is ready to hatch. You will then need to rub the bottom of the egg to encourage it to peck through the egg, you will hear a mechanical click as your pet spins in the egg and then its beak extends to peck through.
The egg will flash white when it is pecking, when it stops it will flash rainbow lights again so you will need to rub the bottom to encourage pecking again.
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Ours continued flashing rainbow lights for ages after the initial pecking, and after 20 minutes it hadn’t changed at all but we could see our pet through the gap it had made. We freed our pet at this stage by peeling away the top of the egg and taking off the top of the shell. You can keep peeling the shell until there is a big enough gap to release your Hatchimal.
It is securely in place in the base of the egg so you need to pull quite hard to your Hatchimal out of the Egg, you will hear a loud click but don’t worry it isn’t broken.
There is plastic around the Hatchimal which secures its wings in place, you need to cut this away and press its tummy. It will then sing ‘Hatchi Birthday’ and your new pet is born and ready to play.
Once born your Hatchimal grows through 3 stages – Baby, Toddler and Kid.
The more you play with your pet the quicker it grows. It learns through play and plays games with you – more of this to come once Emmy has played a little more.
Things to note:
When it says to hold your egg at the bottom, it seems natural for children to cup it in both hands, we were doing this, however, this means your hands are more around the curved edges instead of the base. What you need to do it hold it flat in one hand so your palm is on the base and not around the sides, if you don’t do this how long does it take for Hatchimals to hatch will be far longer than it should be or not work properly at all.
Your Hatchimal will stay in the egg stage for longer if unplayed with, ours kept going to sleep so we had to keep waking it up as the children were distracted as we hatched it after school at the end of the week when they were both tired and hungry.
They won’t hatch without you so if you get it to the flashing rainbow stage which means it is ready to hatch and then stop playing it will stop until you are back playing, and you then will need to replay some more to get it ready again.
If you drop and break the egg before the hatching stage, you can’t put your Hatchimal back again so you will need to remove the top yourself and pull your pet from the egg.
Thoughts:
I’ve been asked this so many times already, it seems you all want to know if it will be a fad or worth the money? Well, that’s hard to tell currently as it hasn’t long hatched but what I can tell you is Emmy and Harry both got bored during the hatching process (How long does it take for Hatchimals to hatch? Far too long in my opinion and the kid’s definitely agreed) – it takes a while and you need to keep playing so while it does state it is for ages 5 plus I would suggest it for older children who have a longer attention span and who will keep going.
Although if they do get bored you are able to put it down, turn off and return to it later or another day which is good.
Once hatched there is an off button which will please ALL parents so if your child does stop playing it isn’t going to randomly awaken in the night is you walk near it.
Emmy has played with it enough to progress to toddler stage but time will tell if she keeps playing longer, I will bring you another review when she has played a little more.
How long does it take for Hatchimals to hatch? – FAR TOO LONG!!
***Post Edit*** (14/11/2016) : Sadly this was definitely a novelty toy in our household and Emmy hasn’t played with it since hatching week. She spent one whole day playing with it after however hasn’t been interested since.
***Post Edit*** (26/12/2016): This is an update and some advice on troubleshooting from Spinmaster on things such as How long does it take for Hatchimals to hatch?
The first step to note is that the plastic ‘locks’ located underneath the egg needs to be turned 90 degrees and pulled out from underneath to activate the hatching process. You can see how to properly pull them out at the 0:45 mark here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Mm_LM41e8
You can find many troubleshooting Tips and Tricks at Hatchimals.com or this YouTube video http://bit.ly/2ih…3r3I. Please see the below links for further assistance:
1. My Hatchimal started pecking, but now it’s stopped. What should I do? http://bit.ly/2i5SIJD
2. My Hatchimal isn’t responding when I rub the egg, what should I do? http://bit.ly/2i5YStn
3. My Hatchimal isn’t responding in the egg, what should I do? http://bit.ly/2i8i3Fs
Regular Consumer Care hours commence Monday, December 26th from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST. However, we will continue to support questions via Spin Master social channels. Our Social Media holiday hours are from 5:00 AM – 1:00 AM EST. Spin Master is committed to responding to customer questions and queries as quickly as possible. In anticipation of the busy holiday season, we have increased capacity with our Consumer Care team and are working continuously to respond. We’d like to thank you for your patience.
These troubleshooting tips work with all versions of Hatchimals (original, hatchimals glittering garden, hatchimals surprise )
Post Edit: 12/12/18 – The new Hatchibabies versions of Hatchimals have a slightly different shell, designed to combat many of the hatching issues of the original. For this instead of rubbing the bottom of the shell you need to rub around the band area of the shell, located towards the bottom 3rd of the Egg. If you look closely this is visible on the shell – make sure you are rubbing the band area – this is the only way to activate the hatching motion, when your Hatchibabies are ready to hatch you will see Rainbow coloured eyes, keep rubbing the band area and your baby will then begin to rotate, pecking its way out of the shell. To make your new Hatchibabies sing Hatchi-Birthday you need to press its right foot.
When your Hatchimal has finished hatching/pecking its way out of the egg it will need a little assistance to get out of the egg. Just give it a pull – it fits tightly into the egg so to free your Hatchimal from the egg you will need to pull it hard to get it out. We also reviewed the Hatchimals Hatchibabies which you can read here.
Disclaimer: We received this toy from Spinmaster in exchange for this review (apologies for the video quality and forgetting to turn my phone around when filming – the kids were so excited it was a case of grabbing the phone quickly – all rules went out the window)
Hatchimals are available to buy from Toys R Us, Argos, The Entertainer, Tesco, Amazon, Smyths and other good retailers. RRP £59.99
Other Hatchimals content/reviews we have on our site which you may like:
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Clare
Hi, I'm Clare (Emmy's Mummy). A former Nanny and Mother of 2 - Emmy (born February 2010) and Harry (born October 2012). We are Essex based and share our adventures and misadventures of a busy crazy life.
Comments (29)
Hatchimal hatched, didn’t sign happy birthday. Pulled it out of the base…didn’t sign happy birthday. It seems to just yawn and nothing more. How do we get it to sing happy birthday and begin the “growing” process? Our daughter has been wanting one for over a year and she’s sad it’s not working correctly. Not a great experience considering the cost!
Chris, which version do you have? The new one you need to press and hold the right foot. All trouble shooting in the yellow booklet
Our hatchimal died! My daughter is devastated she carried it everywhere and loved it all day yesterday setting it in “nest” when she wasn’t playing with it. Today it started to hatch, then fell asleep and won’t wake up at all! We “hatched” it and tried to wake it up, turn it off and on, changed the batteries, nothing worked 🙁 I had to call Santa and tell him we got a bad egg 🙁
Oh that’s very sad. If you call the number on the box they can advise or head over to Spinmaster social media pages and they can help
our hatch egg isnt responding.. tried all the above tilting and tapping etc.. tbrown box and have a very upest 3yr old ? .. any advise?
If you head over to the spin spinmaster facebook or Twitter pages they will be able to help
Sorry for all the typos!! Sheesh! Lol!
Hi there! We had all these similar problems, and I was beginning to think we had gotten a fairly one!! If he starts pecking and then stops, it is VERY frustrating! What worked for me was gripping the bottom of the egg like I was opening anight upsidedown jar…very quickly rotate your wrist once to the left, and once to the right, fast enough to make the bird inside to spin a little….I also make sure nothing was in the way on either side of his beak. It did take longer than expected to get the “pecking open” finished…and I had to put into “sleep mode” quite a few times by holding it upside down until it made no noise at all…the instructions say 8 seconds, but it took longer for me.. a few times by quickly rocking it side to side, it helped it along, but not as affective as above… my daughter (10) loved it, while my son (9), could have cared less!! Lol! I only got one, and I am glad! 🙂
So pleased you got it to work and your daughter loves it
Ours is responding inside the egg, but not pecking at all. My daughter has been at off and on for 6 hours now. ?
Hi Karen Ours took a very long time to hatch. Longer than stated on the box. I did find that children tend to cup the bottom of the egg. The sensors are only in the Base so make sure she is holding right at the bottom and not around the sides.
Our hatchimal won’t start after removing the twist locks
Ours won’t either
Oh no that’s not good. Have you tried turning upside down for a while and they playing with it, and turning off and on again? Did it take a long time to hatch? Maybe try the batteries. If that all fails please call the number on the packaging and they can help.
The hatchimal keeps going to sleep, that’s all it does. It won’t do anything else. It has already been hatched.
Oh no. Ours did this for a while in hatching mode. Have you tried turning over and playing with it? Turning off and on again? If you have give the number on the packaging a call and they can help.
Apparently the hatchimals are in short supply, but I’ve heard that there are a lot more going to be delivered before Christmas. There has been a delay on dispatch but it’s all sorted, stores will be getting them in time for Christmas true or false I’m not sure!………but it will be funny if all those people trying to sell them at a massive profit on the likes of eBay etc. are left with them after Christmas. They’ll be having a Pengualas Monday sale lol Serve them right.
I m thinking of getting one of these Think ill wait to the new year – would be so disappointed if they didnt hatch
Hi i got a hatchamal and it worked but it kept come on while i was watching a movie and i made i fall asleep but now it won’t stay on for long only about 30 seconds
Hi Angel, If you contact the number on the box/on the instructions they will be able to help you
I have had the same problem with my hatchimal, during the hatch process it fell asleep and will not wake up, we spoke to the hotline and went through all their instructions, but to no avail, when told we purchased it from ebay they told us there is nothing they can do. Thankfully I gave my daughter gets for her birthday as I couldn’t wait till Xmas, just hope other people are not going to have the same problem come Christmas day.
Gosh that’s such a shame and rather unhelpful sadly
Our hatchimal won’t wake up – tried everything ? My 2 yr old is very disappointed- was working great started purring then we put it down to have supper and it hasn’t worked since – what to do?
If you contact the number on the box they will be able to help you.
Hi Our Hatchimal arrived on Tuesday it has been kept in its box and not been touched because it’s a Xmas present for our granddaughter. This morning it started to make noises and snore in the box?
Please tell me it’s not already hatching without any interaction whatsoever?
Hi Karen
It’s won’t hatch until played with.
My 5 year old girl has just received this.she’s been playing with it and loved it but went to bed only to find in the morning that it’s cracked the egg open a little bit but now doesn’t come back on??? She’s so disappointed?
Have you tried turning it upside down for a while? or like I did knocking on the base of the egg repeatedly as that worked for me
Interesting read as we had a similar experience with our Hatchimals too. The hatching process took a lot longer but I have an 8 year old girl (nearly 9) who was very determined to see it thru to the end. My 5yr old boy became disinterested at this stage. however since hatching they have played with their new “pet” but there is still lots of following instructions with the eye colour changes. I would say it’s more appropriate for 7+years XX
Thoughts:
Hatchimal hatched, didn’t sign happy birthday. Pulled it out of the base…didn’t sign happy birthday. It seems to just yawn and nothing more. How do we get it to sing happy birthday and begin the “growing” process? Our daughter has been wanting one for over a year and she’s sad it’s not working correctly. Not a great experience considering the cost!
Chris, which version do you have? The new one you need to press and hold the right foot. All trouble shooting in the yellow booklet
Our hatchimal died! My daughter is devastated she carried it everywhere and loved it all day yesterday setting it in “nest” when she wasn’t playing with it. Today it started to hatch, then fell asleep and won’t wake up at all! We “hatched” it and tried to wake it up, turn it off and on, changed the batteries, nothing worked 🙁 I had to call Santa and tell him we got a bad egg 🙁
Oh that’s very sad.
If you call the number on the box they can advise or head over to Spinmaster social media pages and they can help
our hatch egg isnt responding.. tried all the above tilting and tapping etc.. tbrown box and have a very upest 3yr old ? .. any advise?
If you head over to the spin spinmaster facebook or Twitter pages they will be able to help
Sorry for all the typos!! Sheesh! Lol!
Hi there! We had all these similar problems, and I was beginning to think we had gotten a fairly one!! If he starts pecking and then stops, it is VERY frustrating! What worked for me was gripping the bottom of the egg like I was opening anight upsidedown jar…very quickly rotate your wrist once to the left, and once to the right, fast enough to make the bird inside to spin a little….I also make sure nothing was in the way on either side of his beak. It did take longer than expected to get the “pecking open” finished…and I had to put into “sleep mode” quite a few times by holding it upside down until it made no noise at all…the instructions say 8 seconds, but it took longer for me.. a few times by quickly rocking it side to side, it helped it along, but not as affective as above… my daughter (10) loved it, while my son (9), could have cared less!! Lol! I only got one, and I am glad! 🙂
So pleased you got it to work and your daughter loves it
Ours is responding inside the egg, but not pecking at all. My daughter has been at off and on for 6 hours now. ?
Hi Karen
Ours took a very long time to hatch. Longer than stated on the box.
I did find that children tend to cup the bottom of the egg. The sensors are only in the Base so make sure she is holding right at the bottom and not around the sides.
Our hatchimal won’t start after removing the twist locks
Ours won’t either
Oh no that’s not good.
Have you tried turning upside down for a while and they playing with it, and turning off and on again?
Did it take a long time to hatch? Maybe try the batteries.
If that all fails please call the number on the packaging and they can help.
The hatchimal keeps going to sleep, that’s all it does. It won’t do anything else. It has already been hatched.
Oh no.
Ours did this for a while in hatching mode.
Have you tried turning over and playing with it? Turning off and on again?
If you have give the number on the packaging a call and they can help.
Apparently the hatchimals are in short supply, but I’ve heard that there are a lot more going to be delivered before Christmas. There has been a delay on dispatch but it’s all sorted, stores will be getting them in time for Christmas true or false I’m not sure!………but it will be funny if all those people trying to sell them at a massive profit on the likes of eBay etc. are left with them after Christmas. They’ll be having a Pengualas Monday sale lol Serve them right.
I m thinking of getting one of these
Think ill wait to the new year – would be so disappointed if they didnt hatch
Hi i got a hatchamal and it worked but it kept come on while i was watching a movie and i made i fall asleep but now it won’t stay on for long only about 30 seconds
Hi Angel,
If you contact the number on the box/on the instructions they will be able to help you
I have had the same problem with my hatchimal, during the hatch process it fell asleep and will not wake up, we spoke to the hotline and went through all their instructions, but to no avail, when told we purchased it from ebay they told us there is nothing they can do. Thankfully I gave my daughter gets for her birthday as I couldn’t wait till Xmas, just hope other people are not going to have the same problem come Christmas day.
Gosh that’s such a shame and rather unhelpful sadly
Our hatchimal won’t wake up – tried everything ? My 2 yr old is very disappointed- was working great started purring then we put it down to have supper and it hasn’t worked since – what to do?
If you contact the number on the box they will be able to help you.
Hi
Our Hatchimal arrived on Tuesday it has been kept in its box and not been touched because it’s a Xmas present for our granddaughter.
This morning it started to make noises and snore in the box?
Please tell me it’s not already hatching without any interaction whatsoever?
Hi Karen
It’s won’t hatch until played with.
My 5 year old girl has just received this.she’s been playing with it and loved it but went to bed only to find in the morning that it’s cracked the egg open a little bit but now doesn’t come back on??? She’s so disappointed?
Have you tried turning it upside down for a while? or like I did knocking on the base of the egg repeatedly as that worked for me
Interesting read as we had a similar experience with our Hatchimals too. The hatching process took a lot longer but I have an 8 year old girl (nearly 9) who was very determined to see it thru to the end. My 5yr old boy became disinterested at this stage.
however since hatching they have played with their new “pet” but there is still lots of following instructions with the eye colour changes. I would say it’s more appropriate for 7+years
XX