Toys for babies

One thing that I was way over my head before (and not long after Alex was born) were the many different toys you can get. You will see them say an age but chances are your child may not be all that interested in that sort of toy yet.

I always said to myself I would buy the ELC Buggy Driver toy for my baby as it's just so darn awesome and I had seen girls and boys enjoy playing with this when sitting in the pushchair on a bus or when wide awake around town. You will see it says 3 months as the starter age. My little lad would stare at the colours and gently touch the wheel but most of the time he just loved the colours, he couldn't use it. My other problem was this did not fix my pushchair (anyone with a Hauck pushchair may also have the same problem) so I just clip this onto his bouncer. He's now 6 months old and starting to learn to sit on his own. He adores this toy now and sometimes just likes to put his feet up onto it and turn it around and around and around! I'm hoping once he is able to sit on his own without trouble we can get him a light stroller and can clip this onto it without the trouble we have with the massive Hauck pushchair we have right now.

Other toys that we have bought over the past 6 months would be Lamaze toys. We were given one as a gift from a family who I use to live next door to and even when his eyesight was still developing he loved it! The colours and the textures really seemed to get him going. The one I bought for him was Freddie the Firefly which has been in his heart since the day I bought it. Even as I type this he is next to me playing with all the different parts, sticking bits into his mouth and shaking it like crazy to make it rattle. I have to say Lamaze seem  to have gotten on to something as my boy loves both his Lamaze toys.

The other issue I came across was so many toys do so many things now. I know I'm getting old now but 24 years wasn't that long ago, surely?! Back then toys were simple! Now they all seem to flash, play music and sing songs and many have big creepy faces on them! Now I had some old time classics Fisher Price toys. I had a dog that you pulled on a lead, The Little People House and Garage, but the most wonderful and memorable toys that I owned were the Fish Price hoop stack (a white pole that would have some different sized hoops of different colours that you could simply stack or just play with the hoops) and the Fisher Price telephone (See Toy Story 3, I had the same one from the movie but bit more used and abused looking after I had my way with it!).  Now I was at my parents house when I saw Alex was learning new skills as he started to pick something up with one hand then pass it to the other hand and then back again, over and over and over. He was also starting to show an interest in sitting so a little light bulb went off in my head. I thought the hoop stacking toy would be great as he can hold the brightly coloured rings and learn to pass them and when he can sit unaided he can then begin stacking them himself. However every single store was selling versions of this that would flash, sing, dance, all the things I had never would have expected from such a simple idea that children use to have back in the good old 80's. My mother suggested we go to Tesco opposite where we were as I needed to go get some more formula milk and we came across the toy section. Sure enough Tesco had their own baby toys and a simple ring stacking toy for just £3! Amazing! And best part was taking it out for the first time and watching my son play for hours with the rings and even bashing them together to make noises.

So if you are wondering about toys for your baby either now or in the future don't go all out and spend crazy amounts of money just because it's the latest thing and does amazing things. Sometimes your baby won't care all that much and will enjoy the simple joys that can come out of a toy, specially when so young. If anything I'd say save money for the big things like pushchairs and car seats.