Baby toys, age by age

Games and toys

When a child plays, play is not just a distraction for him. When adults play a game of cards or tennis, they are looking for relaxation: playing is the opposite of working. For children, playing means working their minds and exercising their strength. Playing is his normal activity, it is an essential element for his development.

By playing, the child develops his imagination, his creativity: he experiences an activity which belongs to him by expressing his reactions, his emotions. When Lisa scolds her doll for getting her panties wet, she is probably imitating her parents’ harshness. Axel was very scared because a car skidded in front of theirs: for several days, he “replayed” this accident with his small cars. Sarah had a lot of fun at the school fair; with her cuddly toys, she remakes the activities and games that she particularly liked. It is important that the child has time for these free, spontaneous games; he does not need to be constantly busy with activities that may seem more useful or with fancy toys.

Preferences at different ages

Depending on the age of their child, parents do not always know what toys to offer. When they walk into a store, it is more often to ask for “a toy for a 2 year old girl, or a 3 year old boy” than a doll or a car. But each age has its preferences. This is why we hope to be useful to you by indicating below a commented list of toys that will please your child from 1 month to 4 years old. Of course, if he doesn’t like construction games or puzzles at the age when other kids are interested in them, don’t draw conclusions about his development. He just has other interests and you will surely find them.

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He discovers sounds and colors. This is the age of rattles: large with a wide handle because a baby has difficulty in grasping; with colored balls or bells; to chew to relieve the gums; with chain that hangs on the cradle or pram, etc. You can also hang animals from the bed; choose them in rubber, or in fabric, so washable because soon, your baby will put them in his mouth. You can also hang a mobile, the baby likes what moves. You will notice that already at this age, the child can tell the difference between hard and soft, between a rag doll and a plastic rattle.

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Your baby learns to use his hands in several different ways: feel, scratch, pull, press, let go. Install him on an awakening mat: he will thus have the opportunity to do the gestures that tempt him at this age. Alternate the positions on the stomach and on the back as long as he does not know how to turn over on his own. Give him rubber animals, which make noise when pressed, more skilful rattles which will give him new satisfactions like the musical rattle. He likes to look at small mirrors and sometimes, without knowing it, discover his face. He enjoys looking at picture books. This is the age when the child tries to lift himself up to sit down; a small portico hanging on his bed or in his playpen will amuse him a lot. In the evening, a music box will help him fall asleep.

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You can install your child in his playpen, with his toys around him. Throwing objects as far and as often as possible, not to annoy you, but to see where they fall, that’s what amuses him the most. So give him toys that won’t break: rubber animals, plastic cubes, fabric dolls, stuffed animals. He also likes the game of beads and spirals: you have to move large beads along several axes. He exercises his skill with rings to be placed on a central axis to build a pyramid. Shaking a game that makes noise (a rain stick or a “moo box”) makes him laugh a lot. He likes – and he will still like at the next stage – boxes of all kinds: for shoes, plastic… He tirelessly places and removes his cubes or other treasures in them and also trains himself to close the lids. At this age, he begins to crawl and enjoys the small objects he can hold in one hand while moving. For the bath, give it animals that float: fish, ducks, frogs …

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Pushing a rolling toy in front of him, and on which he has the impression of leaning, gives confidence to the child who takes his first steps: wooden animal, musical roller, etc. He will also like to pull toys at the end of a string. When he is seated, with his now more skilled hands, he stacks and nests circles and cups. He also appreciates the books on which you have to press to emit the sounds corresponding to the images (animal cries, wind, rain, musical instruments…), small plastic cars, big Lego®. Since this is also the age when he begins to want to eat on his own, he plays and exercises with a spoon and a plastic bowl. For the bath, give him receptacles that allow him to empty, fill, transfer. It is also the age of the first blocks of sand. Offer him mussels, a bucket, a watering can, and the water or sand mill. Think of balls and foam balloons.

18 months to 2 years

He touches everything, runs everywhere, makes noise, moves, transports. So, to satisfy these new interests, give him a horse on wheels, a wooden train that he will drag from one end of his room to the other: for him, dragging is progress, it is more difficult than to push. He also knows how to get on a truck and move it forward; he fills his trailer with wooden bricks. He enjoys knocking down plastic pins and trying to pick them up. For moments of calm, give him something to exercise his skill: wooden puzzles, eggs and nesting barrels, “shape sorter” (toy in the shape of a box, the lid of which is pierced with holes of different shapes: corresponding pieces. to these forms are joined, the child must make each of them enter into the corresponding opening). At this age, he also enjoys hitting a wooden workbench with a mallet, or a xylophone. Finally, from 18 months, a child likes to be told a short story.

2 to 3 year-olds

Until this age, boys and girls are generally offered the same toys. But from 2 years to 2 1/2 years old, habits and the environment mean that we give dolls to girls and cars to boys. But if one wants games generally attributed to the other sex, why refuse them? Some girls like to play toy cars, just like some boys like to take care of a bear or a doll. Jules’ parents observed that when he went to his cousins, he played with their little stroller. They gave him one for his 2 years and Jules is delighted to take his cuddly bunny for a walk. This is the age when children begin to imitate parents and the adults around them: driving a car, making phone calls, going on a trip, cleaning the house or shopping. Mélodie, 2 and a half years old, can play the dinette for a very long time: feed her dolls, the adults around her, herself, cook. Ernest very much enjoys participating with his parents in the preparation of the family meal.

At this age, boys and girls love the wooden village, farm animals, and, for the garden, a wheelbarrow. Consider offering your children stickers, markers, colored pencils, plasticine (even if you find it “dirty”!), And later cutouts with scissors (round and always in the presence of an adult). These activities are simple, inexpensive and yet many children arrive at school without having ever had these objects in hand. For exercise, children like tricycles, rocking horses and, when tired, look at a picture book, or exercise their skill with nesting boxes.

3 years

This is the age of the imagination. A long dress and a crown transform the little girl into a princess; with a scarf and a cape, the little boy becomes a pirate. Some kids love to dress up, others hate it. Wearing a mask can impress them. Boys and girls treat their bears or dolls with a doctor’s kit. Books interest them more and more: by looking at the pictures, they themselves invent stories. They like construction games, big puzzles, the first coloring; and in the garden, the swing and the slide. They invent.