Finding the perfect toy for your active baby can be a hard and often times discouraging task. When we finally decide on what toy to get our babies we pick it up and present it to our babies thinking they will spend hours playing with it, only to find that the toy soon ends up collecting dust in the toy box with all of the other toys. The reason for this is that once your baby gets a new toy they look at it, feel it, taste it, sniff it, bang it on the floor, and shake it in the air to see if it makes noises. They use all of their senses on the toy and then they throw the toy out.
This isn’t because your baby has a short attention span and doesn’t want to learn, it is the exact opposite. Babies want to learn everything that they can as fast as they can. By going through the toy and using all of their senses your baby can learn everything from the toy that it has to offer and move on. It is this theory that allows you to reintroduce old toys to babies and they treat them as if they were new.
With babies acting, this way towards toys some people get the idea that toys for a baby are useless, when in fact toys are needed in a baby’s world because that is how they learn and develop. The problem is choosing the perfect toy for your baby. Here are some tips to help you pick baby toys for your baby.
Tip one: The first thing you need to be concerned about is safety. You want to check the toy to see if it has items that can come loose and turn into choking hazards. You also want to look for sharp edges that can cut your baby. Check for parts that can break off while your baby is exploring the toy, including while they are banging it on the floor, check for any loose stitching that can allow baby to reach inside and get a handful of stuffing.
Tip two: You want to look at each toy and figure out how it is going to please every one of your baby’s senses. You want to pick toys that are going to allow your baby to put it in their mouth, touch it, shake it, bang it, etc. You want to pick a toy that will make noise when your baby shakes it or bangs it on the floor, but you also want to find a toy that is going to offer a variety of textures for your baby to feel. The more textures that a toy has to offer the longer your baby is going to spend exploring it. You also want to find toys that offer music or lights that light up in response to something that your baby does. When picking toys with sounds you need to think about what you can handle because babies become fascinated by sounds and can turn the sounds on for hours at a time.
Tip three: Toys should also have bright colors on it. The reason for this is that bright colors are going to help develop your baby’s vision. You should also find toys that have variable patterns on them because it enhances your baby’s ability to concentrate on detail, letters, numbers, and shapes, which they will remember later on.
Tip four: The size of the toy is just as important as everything else. You want to choose a toy that is easy for your baby to grasp with their little hands. If there are buttons on the toy you want to make sure that, they are easy for your baby to press at this age, if they are too hard your baby will not be able to use the buttons. The size of pictures on the toy is also important because younger kids are able to comprehend and remember objects that are displayed in large sizes.