To ask for baby toy recommendations

[teaandtoast44]

Dd is 18 months and I feel like she has very little to play with. She has lots of books and some stacking cups, a few v-tech bits and teddies but I feel like she's at the age where she needs a bit more stimulation.

What are your must have, most played with toddler toys? I can't believe how expensive new toys are now (just looked at a baby handbag with plastic keys, phone etc as she's obsessed with rifling through mine - £30!!)

Recommendations very much appreciated.

Toy kitchen was a huge hit, bouncy balls, the poor cats!

No answer for you I'm afraid, but watching with interest as I'm in the same boat with my 1 year old!

The most popular toys my two had were the happyland bus, a variety of musical instruments (egg shakers, a tambourine etc), a wheelybug, the fisher price animal train and scout the dog.

Whatever you buy, get second hand and it will save you a fortune!

For that age I’d recommend - toy kitchen, water
table, mega blocks or duplo, simple jigsaws. A big chunky vehicle they can push (we had an ELC tractor). A tea set. Play phone. And musical instruments.

You want to get stuff that can grown with them. Like:

Toy kitchen and pans, play food, shopping basket, tea set.

Duplo

Brio train set

Small world toys like Happyland.

Small vehicles.

Baby doll and simple accessories.

Puzzles (this won't grow with them as much, but still good to have).

Don't buy a baby handbag etc. She won't want it. She wants yours. Give her one of yours, some keyrings/old keys (if she won't put them in her mouth), purse etc. Still won't be as interesting as your one, but better than a baby one that she'll see straight through!

Cheap pushalong shopping trolley from Smyth's, it's great for practising walking in the garden, it has a fold-out seat for her favourite dolly/cat/rabbit/brother's transformer of the day, and you can buy a pack of toy food to fill it but you can also let her fill it with random stuff she finds in the house (and it's a great thing to have alongside a toy kitchen or by itself).

IMO it's far better than a toy pram because you can also use it to take DD to the corner shop or co-op when she's a bit bigger to go "real" shopping and put little bits and bobs in her trolley to take to the cashier to buy it (DS absolutely LOVED taking a little trolley around the shops when he had just turned 2).

This is the one we have (assorted colours): https://www.smythstoys.com/uk/en-gb/toys/fashion-and-dolls/kitchens-and-household/supermarket-shopping/shopping-trolley-assortment/p/101787

Duplo, Magformers or magnatiles, toy food and tea set, toy pram. Dolls house and furniture. My 18 month old loves all these - she obviously doesn’t play mature games with them but she enjoys them very much and hopefully still will in a couple of years. Crayons and paper too.

Try Vinted or Facebook selling groups, don’t buy new!

Thank you, some fab ideas. Love the trolley idea. Also wondering if she's old enough for some sort of dolls house. As is usually the case with toys with lots of parts, she tends to lose stuff and we just end up with with lots mixed up plastic crap all over my house.