What toys suit a fidgety, active 1 year-old?

[minesarioja]

My son will shortly approach his first birthday and is more interested in plug sockets, knobs and buttons on hi-fi equipment and light switches than in his toy box. All well and good but I'm sure there are some toys out there which don't present health hazards that he'd really enjoy. I just realised that his toy box still contains plastic fruit rattles that he's had since birth so he could really do with a revamp.
Ideas please!

Is he on his feet yet?

the most played with toys for us were

stacking cups, years of use

and a wooden trolley with building blocks

My son got a trike, a push-along train, blocks, shape-shorter, teddies [hhmm], clothes, books etc. from various relies.

The runaway winners have been the wheeled things. He just loves pushing them along. Anything static gets ignored. I have to remove the push-along if I want him to have a go at anything else.

My 15 month old loves (as well as twiddling all the buttons on the amp):
V-Tech shape sorter rocket
Anything with buttons to press
Those things which have four different type of switches that make something happen - <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=beginnings+bop+%26+colour&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1024&bih=475&tbm=isch&tbnid=-mCJZAncvprFQM:&imgrefurl=www.crayola.com/products/list.cfm%3Fcategories%3DBEGINNINGS&docid=GkTm4L2cWbMZiM&imgurl=a62.g.akamai.net/7/62/10424/2067925a4b6c0a/www.crayola.com/products/media/large/80-8258.jpg&w=410&h=242&ei=f8ChTqH5BZGz8QPds4zcBQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=240&sig=110254555057913060562&page=1&tbnh=97&tbnw=164&start=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=81&ty=66" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this is the one we have
Stacking cups
Bricks

Stacking cups are a must. DS got them just before he was 1 and now at nearly 2 he still plays with them daily.

Ride on car is another hit here

There's definitely a pattern here. Wheels and stacking! Thanks for all the tips. We actually have a walker thingy- trolley with bricks in -but the bit you hold onto is just a metal rod and he's a) a bit short and b) not walking well enough so that it would run away with him and he'd topple onto the bricks bit. But it'll be useful in a few months.

Woodlands - I'm laughing at your description of the the "switches than make something happen". Toys are hard to describe!

DD is just over 1 and is a bit like this when she's not trying to scale the bannister and I have an old sweetie tin full of farm animals. She loves to sift through them, make noises and pretend they're galloping around, even the chickens . She also loves cars of all sizes.

Other than that, anything which is a) banned or b) presents a hazard or preferably c) both banned and hazardous.

Ha! Prioneyes, this is what I mean about the plugs and things. All those nice, colourful safe toys, not to mention a designated playmat area, and he goes into quiet dark corners where all the wires are...

DD is obsessed with mobile phones, the newer and more expensive the better. I also recall, around this age, we gave DS an old keyboard with the cord cut off. Other popular items: fragile crockery, any cutlery as long as it isn't safety/plastic, pens, the more felt-tippy the better (just for eating), and bizarrely nail clippers, prohibition of which results in indignant shrieking.

I love toddlers.

Sounds like DS who at one point insisted on being held up at a light switch to turn them off an on, or to be held up at doors at lock height with keys to hand. His first word was 'light'. We bought him this house of locks, to save our backs and at 16 months he's still too young to master it all, but he constantly returns to it.

nb. to make house of locks safe for a baby you'll need a chunky key ring

Greenlegs, my back is caving in for the same reason as yours. I'm actually cursing the invention of electricity right now and can't quite believe how many darn rocker switches we have! The key thing sounds good. I'll look into it.

Hotwheels cars

My two loved these squeaky eggs at that age (well beside all the electrical and phones and stuff). DSs favourite toy for ages (still is really) was a salad spinner just like this. He spends hours spinning his toys around in it and practically has a meltdown if I try and put it away. It has stood up to the attention remarkably well!

Great! I like free toys. We have a salad spinner.
Hot wheels? The ones that go forwards when you reverse them?

The Playskool Ball Popper is the best thing ever. My DD got it for her 1st birthday (she is super active) and loves it. She loves pressing the button, watching the balls pop out and chasing after them. It's one of the best baby toys ever!

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002ECY96I/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0002HZUJC&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0YJ19Q4D74VSN6Y9603V

Ooh that house of locks looks fab! Will order it for DDs 1st!
Another one here who has to stand holding a child at door handle height :o

DS (1yr old) loves our tin container of clothes pegs. He plays with these every day and has done for a few months now. He also likes playing in his giant cardboard box (that his new car seat came in), which I have cut 'windows' in so he can post things through them. He has his own shelf of books that are at reaching height and he spends lots of time every day pulling them all off and then 'reading' them. He has also recently got into pushing around our long handled dust pan and brush.

All his other toys get the odd minute or so of interest if I try and get him playing with them but his passion is (like the rest of them) trying to get to all the things that he is not allowed to e.g. wires, plugs, lap top, phone, mobiles, houseplants, magazines and CD's .

And shoes!

Ooh that house of locks thing is awesome, thanks!

We got DS at that age a bag of ball pit balls from Argos and put them in a cardboard box/bath/cot/playpen and it was a winner.