It took me a while to introduce toys to Sylvie, purely because whether the baby books say they are interested from the start or not, she certainly didn’t seem to clock anything until she was about 3 months.
Shortly after hitting the three month marker however, she gave her first full, cheek-to-chubby cheek smile at a squeaky butterfly rattle which has been a firm favourite ever since. At the start it seemed that anything with big eyes, a smile, a squeaker or a crinkle won hands down.
Over the following months anything easily grabbable was the order of the day. Although Mr Butterfly would always have a special place in her heart, she started to light up with a few other toys that played a tune or had movable, scrunchable parts. 5 months on the toy ‘must have’ list hasn’t changed too much. I’ve also learnt, that the age suggestions for many toys aren’t too relevant – unless of course it’s something with small or hard parts, which of course should only be played with under supervision.
I’ve put together a little round up of all her most absolute favourite toys during her first 3-7 months on earth incase anyone out there is looking for inspiration for their little ones!
First things first. Bright, lurid plastic is unavoidable unless you want to be denied the pure joy that spreads over a little ones face when they catch sight of ghastly, tacky, plastic item that lights up and plays music. Wooden, whittled, Scandi, pastel painted, interior matching items are hard to swing when podgy little hands and bright button eyes are involved so you may as well give in now and let your house slowly fill up with plastic primary colours.
For starters, this V Tech Walker (above) was dropped off to me by a friend at the start of lockdown (left at our front gate for me to pick up, we social distanced, promise). I put it to one side as it’s pretty large, intensely annoying in the sound stakes, and a walker so at 4 months old- pretty irrelevant. Or so I thought, until I knocked into it one day and it started bleating out it’s tunes to the utter delight of Sylvie. Ever since I’ve been holding her up so she can bash it and gummy grin at it’s repetitive ear worms. I didn’t have the heart to keep her from it and it now has pride of place in her little play pen, I even sing along.
Another early days favourite toy gifted over lockdown was this Rattle. It has a sucker on the bottom so you don’t have to hold it all the time and as is pretty obvious from the picture, spins in several different ways. Sylv cottoned on to it’s spinning ability straight away towards the end of being 3 months and loved the noise it made. As she’s got older she’ll meticulously inspect the inner little spinny bits too with great fascination.
The third and final of the lockdown drop off, absolute faves was this Counting with puppy book which again, has grown with her as she first just listened to the little songs it plays (Each page has different speaking and songs and pressing the light up sun at the top right plays more). Recently she has worked out how to press the sun herself to great delight and she’s actually looking at the pictures in more detail.
These Magnetic building blocks say they are for 3 yrs plus but they’ve most definitely been Sylvie’s favourite toy now for the past month. Whether she has one of them or all of them she waves them around, sticks and unsticks them for ages. They stick together and pull apart just easily enough for little hands with different colours on each side and a slight rattle. They go in the bath, in the handbag and all over the place and they are strangely therapeutic to play with yourself.
The O Ball. An Insta friend recommendation in the very early days of Sylv starting to grasp things. It’s fallen slightly by the way side now that she’s 6 months + but up until then it was one of the only things she could reliably pick up and hold on to for some time. She loved flinging it about, which is fine as it bounces and isn’t heavy enough to break or hurt anything, including Tank as he generally positions himself in the firing line unbeknown to him.
I bought these Silicone teething building blocks on a whim quite early on as they fitted the nursery aesthetic… (how naive was I 😂). BUT, they have come in to their own now that she’s 7 months +. They Squeak, which is a win. They can be stacked by Mummy and knocked down by Sylvie, which is a win. They can go in the bath – win. They have all different textures which at this age when she’s actually starting to study things is another win. And finally, FINALLY a toy that is easy on the eye. BIG FAT WIN.
Another recent addition but an enormously popular one both with myself and Sylv is this Little Dutch Rainbow Abacus. A beautiful toy (thankfully) and one that Sylvie loves so much she screams and screeches at it – a positive thing, I assure you. You wouldn’t necessarily think of an abacus for a baby but she picked up one at a friends house and was fascinated so I went on a hunt and found this stunner.
Finally we come in a big circle back to the start and another of Sylv’s early favourites. They say babies can see basic black and white shapes before much else and this Crinkle Pets book was her first, and fitted that bill. She would certainly stare at it early on but as soon as her little hands were able to grasp and smack things this book got a lot of attention and still does. I use it for car journeys a lot as it’s hard to drop and really does keep her entertained. We read it together too if I can hold on to it long enough without her whipping it out my hands!