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Toys for babies 0-3 months
Baby up to 1 month does not need any toys at all. Moreover, there should not be any stuffed toys or pillows in your baby's crib for safety reasons. A few things newborn needs is a carrying adult, enough sleep, and feeding at request. At this age, you could wear some contrast shirts to train the sight focus of your baby.
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What toys can a 1 month old play with?
After the baby is one month old, choose toys by the following rules: no loud noises, blinking lights, and dull colors. Remember that lights and sounds, which a baby cannot control, overstimulate her nervous system leading to exhaustion. What to choose then? Toys rich in sensory stimuli like high contrast, varying texture, and different sounds occurring when a child touches the toy.
1. Lamaze Bitty Bite Bug Rattle
All-time classics like rattles are the best, but they should not be too heavy for the baby.
3. Nurture Smart Baby Crib Mobile
A high-contrast mobile will grab your baby's attention. If you prefer a mobile with sounds, choose the one with quiet and calm music and make sure that all the moving parts are parallel to the baby's eyes and she can see them. Very often, mobiles are made as decorations; its components are placed vertically and facing the room. The baby can then see, for example, only the legs of the hanging animals that are supposed to entertain her.
4. Hape Penguin Musical Wobbler
A Roly-Poly is excellent for teaching babies the cause and effect of their actions. For example, when a baby touches the toy with hands or feet, it wobbles and makes sounds when she doesn't move it, the toy stays silent.
5. Educational Insights Texture Squares
Sensory toys (e.g., textured balls or squares) are good for enriching the baby's sensory experience. You can gently pat the baby's fingers and hands with various textures and stimulate her sense of touch. Moreover, you can sing or recite rhymes while patting fingers and boost your child's development.
Best toys for babies 3-6 months
The age of 3 months is a perfect time to encourage the baby to move more to improve her motor skills. For safety reasons and adequate skill development, a three-month-old baby should spend most of her time on the floor, both on her back and tummy. At this age, it is worth to start stimulating the baby to move and explore. For this, choose the appropriate toys that will encourage the baby to roll around, grab the nearby toy, etc.
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Toys to encourage movement
1. Baby Care Play Mat. A quality playmat will be the best investment from 3 month old and up as they will spend so much time on the floor now.
2. Manhattan Toy Activity Mat encourages babies to stay longer on their tummy and strengthen the core and back muscles.
3. Ikea Photo Frame Tolsby. A great idea would be to put pictures of your family or high-contrast images in front of your baby during tummy time. You could print out black-and-white pictures and put them in front of your baby in picture frames.
4. Trideer Exercise Ball. An exercise ball is a useful tool for more active and engaging tummy time, muscle strengthening, balance training, and overall physical development. You may find particular exercises online, or you may ask your family doctor or physiotherapist for the best activities for your baby.
5. Acrylic Mirror Sheet. Babies love discovering and observing themselves in the mirror and often laugh when recognizing themselves. To prolong the tummy time and make it more exciting for the baby, consider putting a safe acrylic mirror on the wall. Or at least put a small mirror in front of your baby during the tummy time (Sassy Tummy Time Floor Mirror).
Sensory toys
At 3-6 months of age, babies learn to grasp various objects and to put a toy from one hand to another. Provide your baby with toys of complex shapes, textures, and sounds to improve motor skills. For example, maracas, balls, squish toys. If you put such a toy a bit further on a mat, it will stimulate the baby to reach it, roll around and move.
2. Sassy Developmental Bumpy Ball
4. Montessori Ribbon Hand Kite
5. Infantino Textured Ball Set
Toys for babies 6-12 months
It isn't easy to divide the recommended age of the following toys by months because every child has its own pace of skill development. Some toys that are too complicated for one 10-month-old will be just right for another 9-month-old. Here we present toys appropriate for most babies in the age range between 6 and 12 months.
At the age of 6 months, a baby will usually be relatively confident in her tummy and can stay in this position much longer. Since this time, she will prepare herself for crawling and walking. So we need to encourage as much movement in babies as possible because movement is the most brain-developing activity at this age.
Toys promoting gross motor skills
These are the best gifts your baby can get at this age. You can buy it at the age of 6 months and observe how your baby improves her motor skills month by month. For example,
1. PlanToys Wooden Rainbow Baby Roller with Sound encourages the baby to move towards an object.
3. ECR4Kids SoftZone is fantastic for developing a baby's motor skills, coordination, and movement intelligence all at once.
4. Pikler triangle is the most loved gross motor developing prop in Montessori and Waldorf preschools. It dramatically improves the coordination and gross motor skills and can be used with a baby as young as 6-months-old. Babies learn to climb using both hands, balance, and focus on how their body moves in space, which is a real brain-booster for little kids.
5. In a crawl-through tunnel, babies improve their bilateral coordination skills, overcome the fear of narrow spaces, and develop gross motor skills.
Balance-promoting toys
1. The rocking horse is an all-time classic that every child needs. You can use it right when your child starts to crawl. Rocking horses improve the baby's coordination, the vestibular system and calm down the baby's nervous system.
Wooden rocking play and wobble board are both widely used in Waldorf early education classes. These are open-ended toys that grow with a child, who can play with them in many different ways depending on the age. Both these props develop a sense of balance in babies by stimulating their vestibular system and strengthen their muscles. These are to be used with babies around 12 months old.
4. A balance bike is a fantastic tool to teach baby balance and improve her body control, but we recommend using it with walking babies. It is also better to ask your family doctor or orthopedist whether your baby's muscles, hips, and overall posture are ready for this activity.
Toys for sensory development
Sensory activities are essential for the proper cognitive development of a baby. These toys stimulate all major sensory systems like sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Sensory toys enrich the information coming to the baby's nervous system and help to create proper connections in the brain, teaching it to filter out the unnecessary stimuli, like distracting noise, and focus only on the useful information. Moreover, sensory toys encourage babies to explore and discover the world around them and create a "scientific" approach to making a theory, observing, and making a conclusion about things surrounding them. These toys teach children problem-solving skills, improve their language, and refine baby's motor skills.
1. The ball pit is one example of sensory toys that babies love. Choose the one with a basketball hoop. You may significantly improve the hand-eye coordination, gross motor, and spatial awareness of your baby by teaching her to throw balls into the basketball hoop (for sitting and standing babies)
2. Darts with sticky balls develop eye-hand coordination, gross motor skills, dexterity: fun and engaging game for babies that can stand.
3. Massage mats are a brilliant tool to boost senses of touch, balance, motor skills, focus, and concentration in babies and toddlers. Many Physio and occupational therapists use these kinds of props in their practice. Moreover, this type of toy grows with the child. These mats could be used with babies for stimulation of fingers first, then for crawling or walking. Later you could add some physical activities on these mats for older kids or even adults as a part of your daily routine. The mats stimulate receptors on foot, improve blood supply, and prevent a flat foot in children.
4. A unique combination of touch and sight stimulating toys are these liquid fusion tiles that engage children of all ages and are very entertaining even for adults. There are plenty of ideas on liquid sensory bags that babies love on Pinterest and Instagram, but if you do not have the energy to make them, liquid fusion tiles are the best alternative that will entertain your baby for quite a while. They are durable and will last for a very long time, even as a piece of home decor.
Exploration toys
Exploration toys encourage your child to think and observe the consequences of their actions.
1. An object permanence box teaches babies that the objects still exist even when they don't see it.
2. Peek-a-boo game tells a baby that mom exists even if the baby doesn't see her. Play silks are excellent to play peek-a-boo and stimulate many baby's senses, like touch, taste, and sight. All children love natural silk for its unique qualities and various possibilities for play.
3. Ball drop toy promotes hand-eye coordination and visual attention span in babies.
4. Punch and drop toy teaches hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, cause and strengthens arms and hands.
5. Shape sorter teaches babies hand-eye coordination, refine their motor skills, spatial awareness, and promote language development.
6. Dimpl is a brilliant sensory toy that promotes finger strength, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and many more.
Sound toys
Sound toys are crucial for babies. They teach rhythms, cause, and effect, promote language, listening skills, exploration, and boost new neuron connections in babies' brains. Musical instruments are one great example of a sound toy that every baby should have. Another great option is sound blocks that are great visual and sound sensory toys. Moreover, this is an open-ended toy, so children of different ages play with these blocks in many different ways.
Bath toys
Water play is one of the funniest and most engaging activities for babies. It creates a rich sensory environment and provides tons of opportunities to explore the world. Bathtub chairs make it easier for babies to play with water during bath time. You may use these chairs with babies as young as 7 months, even if they do not sit by themselves yet. Just remember that the water level must come to the baby's armpits to reduce the spine and joints' load. Also, we recommend not to use squirting toys as it is almost impossible to get rid of the mold that grows inside almost immediately. A better option would be various floating, scooping, and straining toys when a baby can observe and explore the water's physical properties.
Educational toys for babies under 12 months
Educational toys develop and improve fine motor skills, pincer grip, hand-eye coordination, finger and hands strength, language skills, vocabulary, etc. Such toys require an adult's active participation, so babies are not supposed to play with these toys on their own. Nevertheless, find 10-15 minutes a day to play with your child using the following educational toys. You will quickly see the improvement of their skills and promote their natural brain development.
Finger paints, playdough, and modeling clay are the first type of educational games that are very beneficial for babies. They provide babies with rich sensory experience.
1. You can teach a baby the pincer grasp using playdough as early as at 6-8 months months of age. Roll a playdough worm in front of your baby and show her how to pinch a piece. Then give the worm to your baby and ask to do the same. Help her at the beginning with your hands until she understands the task. Slightly older babies can learn how to make playdough worms and balls with their hands. This activity boosts the sense of touch and fine motor skills in babies.
2. When the baby mastered the skill of pinching soft playdough, use a bit tougher modeling clay to strengthen her fingers. Also, modeling clay is suitable for paper painting. This is when you smash the clay over a piece of thick paper or cardboard, improving your baby's finger strength and fine motor skills.
3. Finger paints are an irreplaceable material to teach babies hand-eye coordination, refine their motor skills, language, and boost neural connections in their brain. You may use them with children as young as 6 months, but the process requires a lot of persistence and patience from the parent to deal with the possible mess. To make it a bit easier, we recommend using finger paints in your bathtub to keep the mess as tidy as possible. Only make sure that the dye doesn't stain your tub before painting
4. Lego Duplo can be used with babies as young as 8 months old. First, show your baby how to take two blocks apart and offer to repeat this action. Help with your hand a couple of times until your baby understands the task. Then teach her how to put two blocks together. When your baby mastered this skill, continue building simple stakes, and teach her how to attach each block to a plate.
Manipulation with small Lego bricks is an important activity that develops finger strength and coordination in babies. If you are confident enough, you may offer a 10-12-month-old baby classic Lego blocks in the same order as described above. You need just a few of them, so you may borrow 5-10 bricks of different sizes from an older sibling or a family friend and try them out with your baby. Classic blocks require your closest attention and carefulness. Small Lego bricks are much more efficient than Duplo in developing the baby's fine motor skills and pincer grip. But again, use them only if you feel confident enough to prevent the possible swallowing or ingestion of the small bricks by your baby. In another case, use Duplos.
6. Another activity to improve fine motor skills is threading beads. You can introduce this activity to babies at 9-10 months. Honestly, this activity is not easy for babies and requires a lot of patience from a caregiver. But the efforts are worth the result. First, show your baby how to put a needle into a hole and ask her to pull. Then put the needle and a bead in your baby's hands and help her with your hands. This activity might require many attempts, but it significantly improves fine motor skills, coordination, focus, and perseverance in babies. When the baby has mastered threading one bead, you may gradually increase the number of beads for threading. Choose smaller beads and better do not buy jumbo beads that are inappropriate for educational purposes.
1. Pyramid stacker is one of a few developing toys that are safe for independent play. When doing an educational activity with the pyramid, hold it at the bottom and ask your baby to take out all the rings. Always teach your baby to put all the rings back; the size doesn't matter first. Repeating this activity will set boundaries and teach your baby to finish the task and keep it tidy. When she mastered this skill of taking all the rings out and putting them back, you may teach her sizes and stack them properly.
2. Shape puzzle may be introduced to an 8-month-old baby to develop her hand-eye coordination and visual attention. Start with the circle, help with your hand if needed, name the shape. When the baby is confident with a circle shape, move to others, triangle as the last one.
Other toys for hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills are stickers, spooning (e.g., rocks and pebbles due to the sound they make), magnetic fishing, magnetic animals, squared stack up cups (more challenging than round), etc. Most of these toys are very engaging for babies and are excellent developing materials. They might be introduced around the 8th month or slightly later, depending on the child. These games always require your presence, attention, and active participation in teaching the play rules initially.
3. Stickers
4. Fishing set
6. Stack up cups. Choose the square cups to challenge your baby.
Language-promoting activities
1. Use small animals to improve the baby's vocabulary, audial awareness, memory, and ability to follow instructions. You may start playing with an 8-month-old baby. In the beginning, you put just two animals in front of your baby. Name each animal and ask your baby to give one to you. If she gives you the wrong animal, you say no, name the animal again and point to it. When she gives you the right animal, thank her emotionally. Be patient and give your child enough time to master this skill. After the baby understands and chooses the right animal, increase the number of animals in front of her to three, then four, and so on.
2. Sensory materials are perfect for teaching babies adjectives. For example, a surface sensing memory game or texture squares will introduce your baby textures, like smooth, rough, soft, and stimulate her sense of touch, creating more neuron connections in the brain. Other activities for this same purpose include the touchy-feely books that children love so much. Choose books with clear and realistic pictures to promote your baby's vocabulary.
Books are one of the best ways to expand your child's vocabulary, but it is important to choose books with clear and realistic pictures.
3. Touch and feel book "Animals"
4. Touch and feel book "Baby Animals"
Conclusion
This guide's toys could help develop and promote the baby's brain connections, motor, cognitive, and verbal skills. There are many sensory toys on the list, but remember that sensory over-stimulation could be as bad for your baby as a lack of sensory experience. That is why you always observe your baby for signs of fatigue and sensitivity to a particular toy.
Educational toys give your child's skills a jump start and intensively promote her development. The best would be to play educational games in the morning after the first nap for 10-15 minutes every day. Because the baby's attention span is concise, do not expect to do one activity for 10 minutes. You may change 5-10 different activities during this time, but this doesn't mean you are not efficient. Later, when the baby becomes a toddler, her attention span will increase, and you may play 1-3 games for 15 minutes. Considering the baby's short attention span, make sure you have enough materials to play with your baby during this time, as you will need to change them quickly to keep her attention. It is better to have your baby on your laps and do all the activities behind a low table. Keep all the current games close enough to reach for them but out of the baby's sight.
Even though all the described toys and activities are essential for the baby's skills, the highest impact on her brain development has the baby's interaction with a loving caregiver, from whom she learns the most about the surrounding world. Even if you cannot afford all toys from the list, it doesn't matter if you give your child enough interaction, attention, and emotional response to her needs.