If you are the sort of parent who believes that toys should go beyond the usual guns for boys and Barbie dolls for girls, then read on because we are going to speak about educational baby toys in this post. We look at the sort of toys that go beyond mere amusement value and which hopefully teach your little one something.
The importance of educational baby toys
Remember, it is your baby’s job to play. Play is an important learning process because through play children start to explore their environment (different sights, sounds, feelings), start to manipulate things (clutching, pushing, throwing, and pushing into the mouth), and understand cause and effect (if I shake the rattle it makes a sound, if I chew on the teether it feels nice).
Educational baby toys for your 6 month old
For the first three months of life, a baby may be interested in little, save perhaps the faces of familiar faces around.
Since their ability to grip anything is not developed in the early months be careful about what you give them – they may end up dropping the toy on their face and get really startled or even hurt.
Babies of up to 6 months find mobiles fascinating as they circle over their cot and they will learn to follow the movement with their eyes.
Activity mats can be useful educational baby toys, since they will help babies experience different visual stimuli – colors, shapes, figures; as well as different tactile experiences – smooth, silky, rough, furry, grainy and so on.
Rattles amuse them, teach them to manipulate things to produce results and also help them practice their grip. Board books are amusing and help them learn especially when a parent sits with the child to point out and name objects so the baby can form associations between name and object.
Educational baby toys for your 9 month old
Now that a baby is sitting up without assistance and even perhaps crawling around on all fours, he may find that his range of activity is greatly increased and the toys that he uses should reflect this. At this age he will find it hugely entertaining to throw things, bang things, push and squeeze things. They enjoy playing with soft balls, pressing squeaky toys to make noises, banging on drums and so on.
Toys such that involve stacking or nesting will let them understand concepts such as big and small, and will help them develop motor skills. Pop up toys or toys that have buttons to push, and so on teach them that doing a certain action will produce a certain result. Board books again are great for teaching them basic words – even if they are too little to say the words just yet they can recognize and learn to point.
Educational baby toys for your 1 year old
At this age, babies like push toys (trucks and cars), pull toys (toys with wheels and a lead). Shape sorters are great to teach them about shapes and about how to get matching shapes into matching cut outs. Building blocks teach them about balance and the sort of toys that have alphabet cut outs teach them to visually recognize letters and numbers.
