I recently have been “spring cleaning” in a sense. No, it’s not spring but with baby #2 coming soon I realized I should reorganize my daughter’s room to make room for my son’s half of the nursery. One of the things I came across were her old toy bins stuffed far back in the closet. As I began sorting through them I put aside her favorite toys — those that really made a difference in the first year. What follows is my overview of the top toys your newborn baby will probably get the most use out of in his or her first year of life.
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1. Sophie the Giraffe –
2. Alphabet and Numbers Foam Floor Puzzle Mat –
With 36 interconnecting foam tiles, this large floor mat covers a lot of space and is the perfect accessory to any baby nursery, or living room if you have hardwood floors. There are many variations of this product sold all over – I just saw one at TJ Maxx earlier today on sale for $9.99 and occasionally this will go on sale at Babies “R” Us. The link above redirects you to Amazon. But wherever you purchase it, this foam mat makes for a comfortable, soft surface for your baby to practice rolling over or tummy time while you watch close by. As an extra bonus, it is a fun introduction to the alphabet!
3. Bestever Baby Mat by Mary Meyer – When I saw this in store I immediately fell in love. This makes for the perfect shower gift and we have gifted them to a few of our friends and family expecting newborns because they really are the cutest, most cuddliest mats ever. (There’s a matching one with blue tummy for boys as well as a range of different animals available like lambs, lions etc.) I think this bear reminded me of an oversized Care Bear (something that is nostalgic for me) so I was super thrilled when I found this online and even more thrilled when I saw one of my best friends purchase this from my registry. The perfect tummy time mat, it also makes for cute photos and is something we have kept in my daughter’s nursery for continuous playtime.
4. Balls, Balls and More Balls of all Kinds – It doesn’t really matter which one you get for your baby, but my daughter and all her baby friends absolutely LOVED playing with balls. In fact, ball was my husband’s first word, or so he tells me. Pictured below is the Oball with rattle, as well as the Oball Classic ball toy – with holes perfect for little hands to grip and play. We also have an assortment of ball pit balls, the Oball Rattle & Roll car (we purchased on Amazon), a small plushy basketball and various sensory balls – great for tactile development and practicing hand eye coordination and what have you. At 3 years old, my daughter still likes to throw these around from time to time.
5. Stroller Toys, Crinkly Toys/Books and Play Key Set – Not sure why babies love keys so much but they do! Our daughter still brings these out to play with. As a baby, she used to take the keys from room to room and, yes, eventually try to put it in her mouth. These particular ones were meant for teething and include an option to play music when you press the music note. We purchased them from Babies “R” Us. In addition to the teething play keys, you can never go wrong with various stroller toys to dangle above your baby for those long stroller walks outside or even to place hanging from their car seat for longer car trips. We liked the ones with crinkly plush accessories and/or crinkly soft books as babies get a kick out of hearing the little crinkle in their hands, and used the owl for the car. The easier it was for the toy to dangle within reach, the more effective these were at distracting our baby and keeping her entertained. The sensory development toy had a suction cup to place on the stroller itself – we used it more indoors on top of her Superseat, something she began using after 6 months old when they can sit up and literally spin toys all around them on a play tray while the seat itself can later transform into a booster seat to take with you to restaurants or just for helping baby to scoot around the house.
6. Baby Rattles – They make noise, they are cute to look at and fairly safe (with the hard ones we just had to be careful she didn’t bang it around). We had an assortment of rattles including the crinkly kind and soft plush kind (the giraffe ring) but our baby honestly took to them all.
7. Stuffed Animals and Soothing Light Up Toy – I began collecting plush stuffed animals for myself long before I ever had a baby (ahem, let’s see, I had my college bear, my collection of Care Bears which I kept in pristine condition, a plush Bambi toy from the Disney Store and my husband’s old tattered Mickey Mouse from his own childhood for starters). However, even if you don’t have a working stuffed animal collection to begin with, I recommend you start one for your baby. They are soft and cuddly and attractive – and while I don’t recommend you put them in your baby’s crib while they sleep as you want to prevent any suffocation risks or SIDS, they make for great additions to a toy chest. My daughter really took to the slithering snail toy (I think we purchased it from Ross for $5 or some other store like that), as well as plush butterfly pillow and Tilly, her rag doll from Ragtales, which we found in London at their popular John Lewis stores (we loved their baby department!!!) but it has since been made available online. Tilly became our daughter’s favorite doll and is still pulled out of the toy chest from time to time. However the NUMBER ONE favorite item of hers from when she was a newborn included in the below photograph was the Fisher Price Soothe & Grow Seahorse toy. We have purchased this for our cousin’s new baby as well because it was a lifesaver! My daughter was not the best sleeper as an infant but the music from the light up seahorse would calm her down and she loved to listen to it on repeat. When she got a little older, she learned how to press the seahorse’s stomach to play the music herself and if you press it twice the music automatically stops (perfect for when your baby eventually falls asleep and you want to let them doze in peaceful silence).
8. Specialized Disney Toys – If you are a Disney fan like me, then the nursery has to have some touch of Mickey Mouse infused somewhere. We have a replica of Cinderella’s castle on one of the nursery walls in addition to a pillow with animated characters that we picked up in Tokyo Disneyland, but to add to the Mickey Mouse home decor, our daughter easily took to a barking Pluto toy that comes with a string to walk him around the house. I saw this at Disneyland in California shortly before her first birthday and she has been a fan of it ever since. The Mickey Mouse stuffed animal was on sale at Babies “R” Us and the soft baby blocks we purchased from Disney Studios in Burbank, CA when one of my friends, who happens to work for Disney, was kind enough to let me in — you can only enter if you know someone onsite. It was there that I went on a shopping spree at their onsite store which had plenty of discounted merchandise usually reserved for cast members, Disney employees and the like. However I recently saw these same baby blocks available for purchase at Disney Baby’s one retail location in Glendale, CA.
9. Stacking Toys, Sorters and Building Blocks – Babies love to stack objects on top of each other and these toys below, including the Fisher Price Rock-a-Stack and Baby’s 1st Blocks toys, helped my daughter learn all about shapes and sizes and matching the correct size in the proper hole (something that became useful later when she was learning to put the chunky puzzle shapes back in place to her animal puzzles at age 2). She also liked to play with the Infantino Activity Triangle – looks like they updated the version a bit from the one we actually purchased, but as an infant my daughter liked to slide and spin the objects back and forth and shake the toy to hear the balls circulate.
10. Blankies/Security Blankets and More Plush Soft Toys – My daughter was not the biggest fan of these as a newborn but eventually grew more attached to her snuggly blankies as she got past the 6 months old mark. My mother-in-law found the giraffe blankie from Angel Dear from a local baby store in Maryland, but it appears to be available on Amazon as well. The Maggie Simpson blankie we found at Universal Studios (gifted to my daughter courtesy of my father-in-law) and the elephant plush has crinkly ears and a rattle inside – though I don’t recall where we received it from. However you can never have too many soft plush toys – just move some aside to make room for more!
11. Tech Toys – In this day and age, tech toys have become the norm. My daughter had an over-abundance of tech toys so maybe not all of these are necessary. However, I am including photos to give you an example of what is out there. My daughter loved her lap tops (all three!) as well as play cell phone, musical piano from Baby Einstein, “Tick Tock” clock, and flashlight. The camera I honestly don’t recall her using much but maybe because as an infant she was wondering what it was (kids are so used to seeing us take photos with our phones that I think the traditional camera toy threw her for a loop). I will say this though – with tech toys, get used to the annoying songs they sing because you will be hearing a lot of them!! My favorite ones are the ones where you can adjust the volume for obvious reasons 🙂
12. Learn to Walk Toys – My daughter and pretty much ever other baby we know loved the VTech Sit to Stand Learning Walker most. It was most helpful around the 10 month stage when she was attempting to go from crawling to standing and walking on her own, and the toy allows them to distribute their weight so that they can easily move around the house. However, from time to time, she still takes this out of the closet and pushes it around! Guess the toy just doesn’t get old! Like other VTech toys, the songs get stuck in your head but it is very interactive and babies love it. As an alternative, we also got her the Playskool Step Start Walk ‘n Ride which doubles as both a walker and ride on toy (currently positioned in the ride on mode) but while she did play with this here and there it was mostly for the ride on aspect. For learning to walk, she preferred the VTech toy. She was also a big fan of any pull-along toy such as the pink corn popper pictured below or the more eco-friendly version made by Plan Toys. Another great alternative to your baby learn to walk is the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn table – they sell various versions including a newer product, but whichever one you get should suffice as our daughter spent many hours interacting with the various elements, sounds and textures on this table. Luckily it’s pretty gender neutral so we plan on using the same one (currently stored in our closet) when baby #2 arrives!
13. Musical instruments – If your child is musical, best to encourage their musical development at an early age! We received two different play guitars and my daughter loves pulling on their strings and pretending to play herself. Meanwhile, I was able to buy the Band-in-a-Box set from Melissa & Doug using my Pampers Rewards points (if you enter all the codes from your diapers and wipes, they can be redeemed toward toy purchases), which came with a kazoo, castanets, xylophone and harmonica. When we visited Disney World last January, my daughter also requested we purchase the purple maraca from the Mexico pavilion so this was the beginning of her musical instrument set!
14. Picnic Basket Toy – We were gifted this picnic basket for my daughter’s first birthday and she still likes to use it to play picnic. It comes with a cute picnic blanket as well as cups, plates, 6 food pieces, two forks and a musical picnic basket that plays different sounds as well as encourages interaction in the form of finding all the various shapes (circles, triangles and squares) and counting 1 to 3. Honestly it has been such a popular toy for her that I had to include it on this list.
15. Finger puppets – Last but not least, the first year toys list would not be complete without including these silly little finger puppets. They make for great accessories in your carry on bag for plane trips or just for sitting around the house. We have received a few over the years in gift bags at parties and they never get old. Sure, the entertainment value only lasts intermittently (five to ten minutes for my daughter at most) but they are cute and a fun diversion to come back to.
That’s it for our round-up of favorite baby toys used within the first year of life. Let me know in the comments if there were any other first year baby toys that really made your child’s day!
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