Best Toys for Infants

Babies are born curious, their curiosity impels them to play, touch, and listen to anything and everything. This curiosity comes from their newfound sense of wonder for the world around them. To encourage your baby's exploration, toys and objects that have varying textures, shapes, weights, colors, sounds, and even smells can help them to learn while playing. 

Children can start benefiting from educational toys as early as one month old. Here are some great ideas for educational toys based on age range and an explanation of their benefits.

For infants that are 1-12 months old:

At an early age, sensory play helps stimulate your child’s senses. Mobiles, soothers and infant play gyms are great first toys for children as they focus on sensory play through sound, sight and touch. As your child continues to grow and develops hand-eye coordination, families can begin introducing toys that encourage more interaction such as portable toys which will continue to inspire visual and hearing senses with flashing lights and different sounds.

For infants that are 12-24 months old:

As your child reaches the one-year mark or older, they will soon become very mobile. Push cars, stride and ride toys and walkers are great to teach balance and coordination and will increase your child’s curiosity with their newfound mobility. As your child begins to learn to walk, you can also incorporate learning numbers by counting their steps which will help them become more familiar with the terms and meaning even if they do not quite understand at this age.

The use of educational toys can help children learn many the different skills they will need in their life such as Cognitive skills, fine and motor skills, Cognitive skills which are the mental process through which we understand the world. Fine motor skills that are related to the hand, palm and finger muscles. Gross motor skills are related to the muscles in charge of the less delicate functions our bodies perform, such as sitting, crawling, walking and more As the baby grows, it is important to ensure that the fine motor skills develop in sync with emotional and physical maturity. 

Moreover, it also helps to nurture them to achieve imagination ability to produce ideas, thoughts and even feelings that do not exist in reality.

Incorporating play in your child’s day can be both fun and beneficial to their growth.

What toys do your children love that help promote learning and growth?

Hope this article helps your little baby through their toddler times!