What was your child's favourite bestest toy ever.... when they were 2??

[LegoLeia]

...We just don't seem to feel inspired by any toys at the moment!

Please help us by telling us what you couldn't live without at this age, and then we will go and buy it for Christmas... DS simply is not interested in toys!

Thank you! xxx

Thanks for the link FA, thinks DS would LOVE that! Perhaps we have a budding electrician in the making

Big megabloks building blocks. Fave toy for about 4 years. Definitely got the most use - and not expensive.

Good suggestions - I agree with all of these. Can I add that the little trampoline from the ELC was a hit for years until they outgrew it.

DS is 2 and has two main faves at the moment - first one is a metre of that pvc splash-resistant fabric from john lewis with a roads/houses pattern on it - he gets his cars out and puts them on the roads, toy animals on the gardens and parks etc. The other is his toy kitchen, pans and wooden fruit and veg set which you can chop with a toy knife (each fruit is in 2 parts held together with velcro). You can get them at ELC. He loves getting all his cuddly toys and toy people out and giving them all some food.

However he also does love "real" stuff as much as toys - he's just as happy helping me put a wash on and hang it up for example, as he is playing with toys. Yesterday we bought one of those long-handled dustpan and brush sets for the kitchen and when we got in he went round sweeping with it for nearly an hour! So if your DS isn't into toys he may enjoy other things - like baking (you could get him an apron and his own pastry roller and biscuit cutters) - or maybe art stuff.

Has Aquadraw been mentioned? These are fantastic. They do a rainbow one now and one where Thomas The Tank Engine follows the track you have drawn.

ELC and Brio trains and roads

Megasketcher Don't get the ones with the honeycomb screen. They don't work so well.

pop up tent and tunnel set

but most popular of all and still played all the time is the kitchen

Have just got a massive Brio type set of train track / car garage/ town bits fromGLTC for ds (2.3) and he is loving it. It is expensive (£45 with the MN discount) but it's like 3 big toys in one.

Also popular here: tea set, play food, toy dogs, skip lorry (3.97 from Tesco) as he is really into skips and bins.

We got some wooden blocks with a shape sorter top on the bucket from ALDI last year and DS is still loving them.

Toy Dyson. DS got one for Christmas when he was 2.5 and loved it so much that he even slept with it (he was Dyson mad, admittedly). Other than that, Megablocks, Megablocks and more Megablocks...

Ooh, and plastic play-food from elc...

Anything horse-shaped! He has a true equine obsession, for some reason. I spend my life looking out for horse-themed things....
Also, I recently bought a "play" shaving kit so he can be like his Dad - you can get them on Letterbox.co.uk for about a tenner which is a bit steep, (I paid half that) but he's obsessed with it! (Aged 2.4)

i agree with Colditz have you tried In the Night Garden - there are a few toys out already that are reasonably priced and some which aren't electronic (oh joy!). there are little dances and songs for each of the characters and because it is meant to calm children down for bed it doesn't make them over excised. my son loves playing Iggle piggle with a box, his bear and a blanket.

I haven't read all the threads, so apologies if somebody else has already posted about IKEA, but i just bought a train track that does a figure of 8 and a train with four carages in a box for i think £6.99

hang on...........

going to find it online

......... there it is

www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/30064359

haven't got it out of the packaging yet cos it's for christmas but it looks really sturdy.

Hi,

My ds loves his Puky learner bike. He asks to go out on it every day, so it is good for getting fresh air and excercise (for Mum and Dad too!)

The PUKY bike is a solid well made bike that has no pedals or stabilisers. Children from 2 years of age can learn to use their feet to push themselves along and soon learn to balance - great fun when going downhill! Ds loves free wheeling on his learner bike now, and he will soon move on to a bike with pedals BUT NO STABILISERS! He can balance so well I don't think he will need them!

Not many of these bikes have brakes, but I bought a model with brakes and am so glad I did. Ds learned how to use the brakes quite quickly thank goodness - now I don't have to run to keep up with him and help him to stop(especially useful on slopes when they can build up quite a speed!).

HTH.

We are train mad here!
I recently bought an amazing wooden train and road set complete with cars trains houses and people from TKMAX for twenty pounds, he has a very few Thomas trains bought on ebay. The BigJig stuff is good, too.
He also loves painting- DH is making him an easel for christmas.
The George luck jigsaws get played with every day too. Washing up is one of his favourite pastimes, I want to get one of those Pintoy kitchens for them next year.

TEsco train track is great and unlike IKEA does not have the little plastic joiners that could be chewwed off (yes I have a toddler NOT a dog!!) but they are compatible with IKEA and with Toys R Us train track.

BUT our favourite toy is a little tikes car transporter that we ot off ebay for a fiver!!

And remember there is always the good old saucepan and wooden spoons.

trains (yep, Ikea trainset here too, it's fab), lots of toy cars (Tesco do them for 50p), trucks, anything with wheels. Anywhere he can organise trains and cars, eg his garage set which he loves as he is still big into sorting and organising, lining things up etc.

All the Early Learning Centre plastic food and saucepans type of stuff, loves to copy mummy cooking.

Ikea easel for painting and drawing - loves it. Also means that we don't have to move heaven and earth to get painting things out and find a suitable space, we just stick the easel in the kitchen.

my ds 2.4 loves his trains probably more than train set, any tractor and is now getting into cars ...likes the hand held size to small ones but its worth paying a bit more got two minis (current obsession) from lidl I thought quite chunky as metal ones and they have disintegrated in days nothing too rough just launching from coffee table etc.
Friends ds has the tool kit thing and has been known to sleep with adaptor plug though his fav is real toolbox from wickes with a few draws in..does the open/shut/tidy bit..

.

His ride on fire-engine - it had two slot-in firemen, a roll-up hose & a box under the seat, which he used to stuff teddy in & then sit on (teddy got rather flat rather quickly) But the thing that made it extra special was the Ford badge from a Real Car that my brother gave him to stick on the back

I know it's been ages but came back to say that the wooden trains, assorted diggers and plastic food are now wrapped and ready to go! Hooray 15 days to go!

Thanks for all your help!!