Buyer's Guide: Finding Age-Appropriate Toys for Babies

Finding age appropriate toys is essential to great gift giving. It can be especially difficult if you're buying toys for infants and toddlers who often can't express or do not know what they are interested in. However, understanding the developmental stages of infants and toddlers can make buying age appropriate toys much easier. In this article, I'll give you a brief run down of the abilities and preferences of children from birth to 24 months. With this information in hand you will be able to choose age appropriate toys with greater confidence.

There are four areas of development that influence a child's enjoyment of a toy: physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. As children grow and develop in these four areas, their interests and capabilities change. Purchasing a toy that does not match a child's level of development can lead to boredom or frustration, even if is based on a favorite theme or character.

To use this age appropriate toy guide, simply scroll to the age of the infant or toddler who will be receiving the gift and read the developmental details listed there. Each age group will also contain basic information on what type of toys are appropriate for this stage of development. With these characteristics in mind you can begin your search for a just the right toy.

Birth to 3 months

Children this age are interested in toys that stimulate their eyes and ears. Sight and sound are the first two methods used to investigate the world around them. Children in this age group like toys with bright colors, especially yellow and red or with high-contrast black and white patterns. Newborns can only focus on toys that are within 8 inches, however, by the end of this period they can see several feet away.

Children within this age group also enjoy toys that make sounds, but not loud or sudden sounds. Age appropriate toys should emit gentle, soothing sounds and make slow movements. Toys that light up or make sounds when baby kicks or shakes them are always popular.

As newborns slowly develop, they begin to grasp at objects with jerky movements, and often place toys in their mouth, so toys should be lightweight, soft, and washable, with rounded corners.

4 months to 7 months

Babies in this age group are still fascinated by bright colors, high-contrast, and complex patterns, but they are now able to track objects moving in their visual field and they can also group visual stimuli into categories.

By the time a child is 5-months-old, he can roll over and push up onto their hands and knees. This means that mobiles and crib gyms are no longer appropriate gifts, as the child will often position himself in such a way that the toy moves out of his visual range. Within a month, the baby will be able to reach and grab a dangling object making suspended crib toys a strangulation hazard.

As children in this age group explore manual manipulation (reaching, grasping, tugging, squeezing, patting, and pulling) they are most fascinated by small hand-held toys like rattles and simple musical instruments. Children still place objects in their mouth, so toys should be washable with no small detachable parts. At this age they also really enjoy texture as they begin to handle toys more, transferring them from hand to hand.

Between 6 and 7 months babies are sitting independently, allowing them greater field of vision and the ability to reach and grab at objects around them. At this age they are also beginning to understand object permanence (that objects hidden from view do not vanish but still exists somewhere). Babies at this stage of development like peek-a-boo games and toys. Their grasp is still claw-like, however, (they do not yet use the opposable finger and thumb in a pincher like action) which makes grasping objects very basic. Therefore toys for this age should still be basic and chunky and should not require fine motor skills.

At the end of this developmental stage, babies can often crawl and stand with support. This means toys should be soft, lightweight, and rounded to prevent injuries when baby falls.

Like infants, babies in this age bracket are still fascinated with faces making mirrors, videos, books and toys that feature the human face extremely interesting.

8 to 11 months

At this age, babies are starting to develop grow motor skills which will allow them to become increasingly mobile as they learn to crawl, pull themselves into a standing position, walk with support, stand briefly without assistance, and may even take a couple steps on their own. Play can also become more aggressive as babies drop, throw and bang toys together. Therefore, toys for this age group should be very sturdy, able to withstand repeated impact.

Babies also develop the pincer grasp at this age, making it easier to pick up smaller objects, however, they still place objects in their mouth so as a general rule toys should not be small enough to cause a chocking hazard. (The card board tube from a roll of paper towels is a good gauge. If a toy can fit into the tube, it can get lodged in a child's airway.) At this stage, ideal toys are still washable.

As babies explore cause and effect and object permanence they will begin to engage in repetitive action like dumping items out of a container and putting them back in again. At this age they are still fascinated by bright colors, high-contrast and complex patterns, as well as pictures of familiar objects.

12 to 18 months

Though still unsteady, children this age begin to walk increasingly on their own, and have become confident climbers. The curiosity of these toddlers far surpasses their assessment of danger, so parental diligence is more important than ever when selecting toys.

The development of fine and gross motor skills means that toddlers are interested in toys that require simple twisting, cranking, turning and sliding. In their continued exploration of cause and effect, toddlers this still enjoy dumping and filling activities as well as pressing, pulling, pushing and stacking. These actions can still be quite aggressive. So toys should still have rounded edges. Toys that award these actions with sounds and blinking lights are always popular (at least with the child, if not the parents).

Children at this age also mimic common actions like drinking from a cup or talking on the phone, and will play with toys that facilitate this behavior, but only sporadically for brief periods. Toddlers also enjoy moving their bodies to music.

19 to 24 months

As toddlers enter this age category they learn how to walk with greater confidence, climb up and down furniture and stairs, and are perfecting their fine motor skills. This allows them to pull toys behind them as they walk, kick balls, and manipulate small objects into matching holes.

The ability to role play begins to emerge as this age as well. At first, toddlers will pretend to participate in common activities and then pass this pretend on to inanimate objects like stuffed animals. At this age toddlers will enjoy toys that facilitates this role playing, However these toys still need to be very sturdy, without small parts that could cause a choking hazard, and easy to clean.

Cognitively they can work with representations of familiar objects making it possible for them to work with pictures, numbers and letters. Emotionally, Children playing in a group will generally play along side each other but it may still be too early to insist upon sharing.

Reference: 2002 Age Determination Guidelines by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission