Five of the coolest, toughest, funnest tickers to see the nippers from picnic to sea
Parents are collectively girding themselves for at least six weeks of domestic / professional juggling, as school’s out and childcare becomes as taxing as endless Zoom calls… before we all give up and dump them on the grandparents.
So here are five of WatchPro’s picks of super-cool, super-new, super-tough, plastic-fantastic tickers to keep them suitably spoilt, let alone your guilt assuaged.
What’s more, they’re all more than up to the grainy, briney, splashy elements they’ll be hurling themselves at, once that family beach vacation FINALLY comes.
5 best watches for kids
Flik Flak x Monbento
Swatch’s beloved child is more robust than you’d expect – 300m water resistant for a start – but also not, and it’s clever: the strap is deliberately designed to snap if any playground / tree-climbing entanglements occur.
It’s stuff like that that makes Flik Flak so deservedly popular. And the read-out has been famously designed alongside child psychologists to aid analogue time reading.
Perfect for al fresco snacking on the go, the new DINO DINER (in blue) and BERRY NICE (pink) iterations come with a beautiful, matching, elastic-banded multicompartment bento lunch box made by French lifestyle brand Monbento.
£49 / $65; flikflak.com
Timex Time Machines Green Gecko
A green resin 29mm case, completed with an adjustable and washable elastic fabric strap, easy-to-read dial with minutes marked for learning.
Not nearly as much diving capacity as Flik Flak (30m vs 300m) but this is for much littler ones, so you wouldn’t want them in the deep end end anyway.
Hence the super-fun rotating reptiles as seconds hand.
£27 / $35; timex.com
Baby-G Beach Style Series
Still conforming to Casio’s cult G-Shock principles of 10-10-10 (10 meters’ drop survival; 10 years battery life; 10ATM water resistance), the Baby-G iteration may not be great for your kid’s analogue awareness, but at your investment will weather… well, pretty much anything.
£60 / $89; casio.com
Swatch SUBAQUA Egg Yolk
No, it’s not a Scuba Libre, it’s a new one from Swatch’s alchemists: a groundbreaking fusion of two innovative materials: their Bioceramic, made so famous by the MoonSwatch phenomenon bringing vibrancy and character to the solid-coloured sections, plus bio-sourced materials derived from castor oil in the vividly transparent parts of the case.
The result is a distinctive blend of design and innovation, with a striking visual contrast that draws the eye and an intricate texture that is hugely tactile.
Like the jellyfish that inspires the design as well as operation, there’s glow-in-the-dark readability in any setting. With a colored transparent dial and 44mm case, a silky-smooth strap and five unique colorways – black, white, blue, red and yellow – each watch in the Swatch SCUBAQUA Collection, is named after some of the most extraordinary jellyfish in the world (‘Egg Yolk’ featured above; see also ‘Lion’s Mane’ and ‘Blue Fire’).
£135 / $150; swatch.com
Seiko 5 Sports Compact
One for your more aspiring, fashionista tweenie with an eye on your own dressertop…
A smaller design and genderless flex from Seiko with self-winding mechanics into the (considerable) bargain, that ‘’5’’ represents the original five key features of every Seiko 5 still present today: automatic movement, day-date display, 100m water resistance, recessed crown and ultra-durable case and bracelet.
How has that ‘five’-year-old grown up so fast?!
£320 / $350; seiko.com