toys: what toys could your ds/dd not live without (6 mos-1yr)?

[MumOfLeo]

As a new mum, I'd love to hear about the toys that your ds/dd adored from 6 mos to 1 yr. Thanks!

The Tomy bouncy ball that makes pingy noised
Baby Tad (hideous american singing frog, she loved it, can buy on Amazon)
Books, books and more books
Reggae for Kids CD (eg Gregory Isaccs singing Puff the Magic Dragon)
Baby Mozart video.

my ds had a piece of string with a keyring at the end and that's the only thing he played with at that age,he never played with any toys, when he turned 1 he started playing with cars ,dd loved playing with the tassles from the cushions,very strange babies they were

Saucepans, wooden spoons, a tray. The contents of all the kitchen cupboards.
An ice cream tub full of fake food that he can tip out all over the floor.
A basket full of balls he can do the same with. In fact, anything he can tip out out all over the floor, especially if it makes a noise.
Set of little baskets from Ikea he can put things in.

He doesn't seem to play much with his 'proper' toys at all. Except a big Fisher Price spirally thing that you can put balls into and they go round and round and out at the bottom.

Anything where you can watch things go down a slope (ELC sell a wooden try thing that you send cars down a ramp and they go from side to side ..we bought it when she was 6 months and she still plays with it now (16 months). ANything where she can make it make a noise (she loved her V-tech nursery ryhme book). didn't like soft toys. Lots and lots of books she adored. The washing peg basket was and still is a firm favourite. And has tricycle that she had when she was one. You strap her in and has a handle to push her round...she is never out of it!!!

Dd had a clear plastic ball (not a bouncy ball, IYKWIM) half-filled with water, with two little ducks in it, she used to adore it! You would shake it and make the ducks go round very quickly for her, and then she learnt how to shake it herself, that was her absolute favourite...

Ds loved his Tomy stacker thing. It looks like the stackers that have a pole in the middle, and doughnut shaped rings, but each piece is whole, and shaped to fit over/under the next piece. Each piece also has a different face on. Ds loved that toy to bits. He also loved his shape sorter cube from ELC. When he was 1, he liked the side with the telephone on. It took a bit longer to actually be able to put the shapes in the correct places. However, this made us get longer out of the toy. He still loves it (26 months), because he likes lining up the 1,2,3 & 4 into the correct order, and naming them.

Sari - I think you have somthing with the things-to-tip-everywhere thing!

Dd's favourite toy is an icecream tub full of jar lids (which I kept when the jars went in the recycling. God knows why i kept them, but I'm glad I did).

She also liked (and still likes, at 16 m) her building blocks - she has big chunky ones she can stack and some little wooden ones she can tip all over the floor. Plus anything that makes a really irritating noise! (you know - my first radio, toy phone etc)

DD liked (and at 17mo still ikes) the Pop Up Ball Blast that my brother bought her for Christmas. To be homest, probably anything noisy then - felt like it anyway!!!

Ds loves cuddly toys. He buries his face in them and holds them tight! Other than that, any cardboard box, bunch of keys, bit of dust off the floor etc. Oh, and Baby Mozart, of course.

Like Whymummy, I think my ds was too young for toys at that age. He still doesn't really play with them much at two years old, though he has started dragging things around with him (ie pull along Barbar) and pushing a trolley and pushchair and pushalong dog around the house/garden. His favourite things are books, his easel with chalks from Ikea, and the snakes and ladders his grandma drew on the side return paving with chalk - which he races up and down on pushing his trolley and counting the numbers, 'one, two, three, seven, nine, TEN!!' He's also started to enjoy painting. He loves music tapes though and has loved those almost since birth. Most toys are a huge waste of money for under-twos, in my opinion. Books rule!

Ds didn't play much with toys until he was about 1, but he did like that Fisher Price thing that Sari mentioned (it's called a `Stand up Ball Blast' because he could pull himself up on it. He also loved baby walker type things. And his ELC Blossom Farm farmhouse shape sorter. Other than that, he loved the wine rack, the buttons on the stereo, remote controls etc etc. At around 1 he suddenly became car and train-obsessed.

Sorry - I didn't mean to wink at you! Ds also loves books, preferably those about cars, trains, tractors, dumpers, diggers etc.

Small coke bottle with rice in - a fav for ages.

at 1 my dd2 loves pan lids, wooden spoons, and a Vtech discovery tree. best toy i have bought her is the doscovery tree. she plays with it for hours.

Cheap and cheerful despite having a house full of toys ds twins aged 21 months love boxes of any shape or size.

From little individual cereal boxes to ones big enough to sit in. They build, pretend they are cars and boats and sometimes horses (!) I prop the bigger ones up on end and they use them as tunnels. Hours of fun guaranteed.

Ooops what I should have said is, the good thing with them being this age is that they don't chew them anymore!

When they were little(r) it was a safer way of building as the "blocks" were cardboard and not wood. Twins have a tendency, or mine do at least, of throwing things at each other.

i had a huuuuge cardboard box here over the weekend, my dd's spent ages playing with it, clibing in and out of it, scribbling on it, bashing it about and generally having fun. little (or big in this case) boxes provide hours of fun!!

If I remember rightly DS (now 2) wasn't really into "proper" toys at that age either and only really played with a farm pick-up truck (from T'r'Us) with a fence and some animals on the back and a button that makes all the animal noises. He still likes this and a little toy by the name of Colorful Colin - a caterpillar with shape/color buttons on the back that plays "delightful" tunes when rolled along the floor. But I'm afraid that his all time favourite toy at that age was a basket of wires/cables (DH is an electronic engineer) left over from the various VD/DVD/hi-fi connections! Not what I would really recommend!
From the age of 1 his all time favourite is a push-along cum ride-on car. (Cheap job from Argos) He lurves it.

Ds will spend ages turning his spoon around and looking at all the angles. He will play with his feet, or his dad's face. In short he doesn't really need toys to have a good time and learn stuff.

To keep him safe when I can't play with him I recommend a Jolly Jumper (for that 10 minutes of "lets tidy up the tip of a house before your dad comes home and asks what I do all day" madness about 5pm. Also a bright cloth book from Tesco with pictures of animals and a scrunching noise for in the car.

DD loved the tomy shape sorter from about 6 months and also hammer and pegs and the balls running down slope thing. The most popular toy from about 10 months was the vtech walker -drove us mad but she loved it!