How closely do you stick to age recommendations on toys

[Greygoose21]

Hi,

How closely do you stick to age recommendations on toys. My little girl is 6 months and generally I do buy toys that’s for 6m + and up to 1 if I thinks it’s suitable.
A couple of weeks ago it was my mother in laws birthday so we have her a pen and let her scribble on the card. She was loving life. This has made me want to get her one of the old school magnetic eraser drawing boards but there 3+. Obviously she will only use it under my supervision. Or I don’t know if one of the big mats would be better with the magic water pens.
Any thoughts?
Thanks x

I tend to find the toys 1 age bracket up are about right. So my 2 year old tends to play with age 3 toys etc. I tend to make my own logic call on whether it’s safe, entertaining, not too difficult etc.
I’d be very careful if you buy anything with small
bits, it’s so easy to pop out of a room whilst they play with something.

Btw I found the water colour mat absolute crap, pointless and mine never played with it.

I wouldn't look at the age unless I was buying it for someone else's child.

I'd have safe toys freely accessible for a 6mo and then ones which may need supervision are kept on a shelf and brought down when I can watch.

With those magnetic boards they usually come with stampers which would pose the most risk so just take the stampers away and put the board on the floor for her to scribble.

I buy things for an older age group than my toddler is. As long as it's no a choke hazard.

Shes been obsessed with the water mat with magic pens since about 15 months. She uses it with a lot more purpose now shes 22 months old. HV commented on how well her fine motor skills were comining on and it probably had helped with that.

Maybe my children were a bit slow (although they seem OK as adults) but I always found toys were too ambitious in their published ages. So a construction set that said 3+ would be far too difficult for a 3yo, it just meant it was safe for a 3yo. And Lego marked 7-10 would be more suited to the upper range when people would buy it for a 6yo.