These Are Toys That Babies Love (and Parenting Experts Approve of)

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Don't count baby out at playtime. The littlest ones hit major milestones through playing with toys. They acquire new abilities like reaching, grasping, building hand-eye coordination, learning cause and effect and more. And it starts early. "Play is a skill that begins in infancy. We see a newborn go from unoccupied to enjoying solitary play within about 3 months. This is a big step for our little ones!" says Becky Thomas, founder and teacher at Playgroup. She's also a specialist in infant and family development, early childhood and special education.
In our list, we left out plush animals. You'll likely receive plenty of bears and bunnies as newborn gifts for your baby to love. Instead, our Good Housekeeping Institute parenting pros and early-childhood specialists focused on developmental toys that help with specific skills as well as toys that can be manhandled by your baby and that engage more than one of their senses.Stack & Count Stacking Cups
Cups nesting into each other is magic to a baby. And these colorful cups can do more: "Once an infant has developed the skill of grasping them, placing the cups on top of each other to create a tower is a great problem-solving and cause-and-effect form of play which is a precursor for so many skills later on," Thomas says.
Use these to talk about colors and show your baby the raised numbers on the bottom of each cup. They double as tub toys, because holes in the bottom of each cup turn each into a little sieves.
These are age-graded starting at 6 months because a baby needs some dexterity and patience to try and stack or nest them. (Knocking them over will be easier!) Plus, your baby is not going to name colors or numbers out loud until toddlerhood. Still, for pure value — you'll use these for years, your child can learn an array of skills from them and the set is less than $10 — these are hard to beat.
$7.49 at amazon.comOball
It doesn't get much more classic than a ball — but infants have trouble grasping a smooth sphere. Even plush balls and bumpy balls can be a challenge at first, when a baby is just gaining hand-eye coordination. The 4-inch, lightweight Oball has a mesh design with 32 finger holes practically guaranteeing that your young baby will be able to grab on, wave this around and revel in a feeling of accomplishment.
"The Oball can be thrown, rolled, squashed and passed from hand to hand," Thomas says. This toy is not easy for a baby to gum as a teether but expect them to try and mouth it. It's not dishwasher-safe, so wipe it down with a damp, soapy cloth. This is another infant toy that lasts and lasts — we have a staffer with a 4-year-old who still loves this toy.
$4.99 at amazon.comNogginRings
One of the first things your newborn will do with a toy is track it with their eyes. Dangle these rings, made in eye-catching contrasting colors, and watch your infant learn to follow where they go. Shake the rattle and see if your newborn will turn toward the sound. These are the earliest forms of play!
Once your 3-month-old can reach for the NogginRings and grasp them, they'll love putting them in their mouth (of course) and exploring their shape and sounds. "This can help your infant learn to bring their hands together on an object, then transfer it hand to hand," says Jennifer Rothman, LCSW, a child therapist in New York City. NogginRings will stay fun throughout your baby's first year but your toddler will outgrow this little rattle.
$23.95 at amazon.comFlip Fish
Babies love to pull at fabric tags, and this tactile toy gives them plenty. Crinkling, squeaking parts, bright patterns, hidden pictures and mirrored surfaces plus a teething fin keep a baby fascinated and exploring. We like this for the prime tummy-time stage from 3 to 6 months when babies can build a lot of core strength by spending some playtime each day on the floor, placed on their tummy with a toy in front of them. Use this toy to encourage your baby to lift their head, then reach and flip the fish fins.
This is also a fun toy for your baby to explore while sitting in their bouncer seat. It's just a little bigger than it looks — just over a foot long — which surprises some parents, so it's not super easy to take around on the go.
$18.89 at amazon.comPipSquigz
As you introduce solid foods, it's nice to have toys that keep your baby happy in the high chair, waiting to be served or digesting while you clean. Make the time educational with this set of three silicone fidget toys for infants that can stick to a flat surface, then pull off with a popping sound. "They're versatile and can continue to be played with as your child grows older and experiments with creative play," Rothman says.
Thomas agrees, adding, "Babies eventually figure out that they can plug pieces together and problem-solve as they create a construction plan. They'll stick them to different vertical surfaces."
This toy was a favorite with the daughter of Marisa LaScala, Good Housekeeping's Senior Parenting & Relationships Editor. She was obsessed — and so was LaScala and her husband. "We'd use them as fidget toys for ourselves!" LaScala says. Wash them in the dishwasher. They're a little pricier than most baby toys, but we think they're worth it.RELATED: Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Month-Olds
$24.95 at amazon.comInnyBin
Rather than a shape sorter, start a baby with a toy that lets them stuff things in and take them back out. "There's a stage of infant development when they begin to collect and this toy is so perfect for not only collecting the pieces it comes with, but any toy that can fit inside," Thomas says. "Fitting materials inside of the InnyBin requires strong fine-motor skills and problem-solving for size, fit and shape. This is a great toy for practicing determination and developing resilience through focus."
Prime time for this toy is 10 months to age 3, as a baby develops better spatial reasoning and gradually gains control over the pieces shaped like a cube, sphere, flower, diamond, happy face and triangle. If this frustrates your baby, first be sure they're in the age window. Second, demonstrate by showing how you pull a toy out or stuff one in. Third, let them experience the possibly maddening period of learning how to do it themselves. "They're building frustration tolerance," Rothman says. The payoff will be your baby beaming with pride.
$27.95 at amazon.comMy Little Artist Playset
This Good Housekeeping Best Toy Awards winner includes a squeaking paint tube, a crinkling paint brush and a crayon that makes a giggling sound. The artist bear in a beret is sweet, too! When we tested with families, they loved that their infants could grasp and wave around the small toys by themselves, and that older babies were able to load the toys in and take them back out of the carry case.
Gund makes sensory-toy sets with other themes, too, like a food truck set, a plush duffel with four sports balls and a cute plush gift bag for a baby's first birthday. You can spot-clean the toys that make sounds and put the carrying case in the washer on the delicate cycle. Some online reviewers say the pieces are smaller than they expected; each toy is only 3 or 4 inches tall. They're baby-sized!
RELATED: Best Sensory Toys
$8.11 at amazon.comDiscoverosity Play Center
This new developmental baby toy is Montessori-inspired, with simple toys like a mirror, spinners and a wooden bead maze in muted colors. In stage one your baby sits inside, as shown. For stage two, it converts to a tabletop so a toddler can stand and play on the outside. In stage three, you take off the toys and use this as a table for a preschool kid. So it works for infancy through toddlerhood and into preschool.
When we tested this in our Lab and with parents we found it easy to build and entertaining for babies who had good head and neck control. Though it is age-graded for 4 months and up, we found that babies started to really enjoy it at more like 6 months.
$184.99 at amazon.comSophie The Giraffe Teether
Sometimes it seems as if every baby in America owns this toy. If yours has not yet met Sophie The Giraffe (real name: Sophie La Girafe, she's French), you might want to introduce them to this popular teething toy made of soft yet durable rubber that's been around since 1961.
There are a lot of theories as to why Sophie is a babe magnet. She's sized right and provides a bit of bumpy texture for infants, with their clumsy grips, to hold onto. "The shape of the toy offers so many ways to grasp it and it's long enough for an infant to easily bring to to their mouth," Thomas says. Sophie's dark eyes and big brown spots stand out on her white body, and babies love that contrast. Finally, she squeaks when squeezed, a cause-and-effect bonus that tots find hard to resist. "Both my babies tried other teethers but loved Sophie," one tester told us. "And seriously, every kid has a Sophie."
A downside is that it can't be sterilized, run through the dishwasher or submerged in water. In order to clean it, the brand recommends wiping it with a damp cloth.
RELATED: Best Teething Toys
$28.99 at amazon.comThe Play Gym
This brand makes one of our go-to subscription boxes, but you can buy this play gym à la carte. "I love that it's not visually overstimulating, like many baby play mats," Rothman says. "Plus, this is easy for a baby and mamma to use together." That's one of the things we like most — and it comes with an excellent play guide with stage-based tips and activities for you to try. (Because, let's face it, most of us do not actually know how to play with a baby!)
The high price is made more palatable by the fact that this can transform from a play gym into a toddler fort and last for years. We consider this one of our favorite high-quality baby toys because it comes with simple Montessori-style toys like a wooden batting toy and organic cotton ball as well as 14 high-contrast pictures on sturdy cards for your baby to study. The mat itself has different areas of color, pattern and texture to keep things interesting.
RELATED: 3 Best Baby Toy Subscription Boxes
$140.99 at amazon.comTummy Time Floor Mirror
One way to get a baby lying on their tummy to lift their head and look up is to offer them a glimpse of something cute: "Babies love looking in the mirror so this helps you extend tummy time," says Rothman.
This was a favorite for both daughters of Lexie Sachs, Good Housekeeping Institute's Executive Director, Strategy & Operations. "So vain, they loved to see themselves," Sachs joked. (Actually babies don't know it's them in the mirror until they're about 18 months old.) "They also loved reaching for the two sensory toys on the top and bottom."
The mirror is baby-safe and unbreakable, so it's a little more distorted than a regular glass mirror. Be sure to peel off the plastic film that comes on for more clarity.
$14.99 at amazon.comTake Along Tunes Musical Toy
Kids love this for the lights and music. Parents appreciate the tunes, since it plays seven classical melodies by Mozart, Vivaldi, Chopin and more. It's pleasant for everyone, and there's volume control if you need it to be a bit louder in the car or softer at home.
We like this to throw in the diaper bag for outings because it's so small but so stimulating — if you need to soothe or distract your baby at a restaurant, in the supermarket or while doing a diaper change in an unfamiliar bathroom, this can be little lifesaver. It's also easy to wipe clean. It comes with the two AA batteries needed to get started but online reviews say that you'll want more on hand if your baby loves this toy and uses it often.
$9.96 at amazon.comSassy Ring O Links
Infants love how these C-shaped rings clack together and fall all around the main circle ring, which is done up in contrasting black and white. Sassy's O Links are differently textured rings in rainbow colors and the toy, about 5 inches tall, is easy to take anywhere. Pull off any one ring for your infant to grip and gum or keep them all together as a rattling distraction as you travel around in the stroller, car seat or on a plane.
If the toy lands on the ground, feel at ease knowing that it is dishwasher-safe. Some parents say they also use the black and white ring to attach other toys for dangling — the main ring pulls open enough to link a toy on, or to clip it to something like the stroller harness. It's a small purchase, not a big giftable kind of toy, but one that you and your baby will probably turn to more than you'd expect.
$4.46 at amazon.comFoot Rattles
Wait, did I just do that? When wearing sock rattles, an infant's own motion entertains them, leading to exciting discoveries like finding their own feet. The black and white zebra and smiling cheetah are also made for a newborn to be able to see their contrasting stripes and smiles. Eventually your baby will have the dexterity to pull the booties off and hold them in their hand.
Some sensitive infants might get overwhelmed by the rattling after a few minutes so be sure to keep an eye on your baby and remove the socks if looks as if they're agitated or grown tired of them.
$8.00 at amazon.comSmart Stages Piggy Bank
A baby able to sit up and grasp, usually after 6 months, will enjoy fitting the 10 coins into this smiling piggy bank — and it hones their hand-eye coordination and fine-motor skills. The toy rewards their persistence with songs and phrases, offering words in Spanish and lessons in colors and counting. Once your infant has heard all of the Stage 1 lessons plenty of times, you can switch to Stage 2 for new lessons for your toddler.
We like that it comes with the batteries included and that the coins can all store inside the bank. You can turn off the music and sounds, but there is no volume control.
$19.49 at amazon.comGarden Tails Soft Fabric Book
Before their clumsy little hands are even ready to turn the pages of a board book, your baby can play with all the tactile features on this soft cloth baby book. Infants can pull on the dangling tails — they love to pull tags and pieces of fabric. Follow each tail to the animal inside and call out its name.
The pages crinkle for added interest. Jellycat makes other variations, like one called Farm Tails. This is a book you can explore together, but to help your baby's vocabulary grow, you should also read aloud from regular board books.
RELATED: Good Housekeeping Kids' Book Awards
$21.00 at amazon.comFreddie the Firefly
We're showing the firefly, but Lamaze makes a herd of bright, dangling creatures that include an axolotl, an octopus and a lobster. This clip-on toy can attach to the stroller and not be thrown overboard, which, you'll learn from experience, is a problem with other toys. Hook it around the stroller harness so your baby can hold this in their hand and explore the layers of textures and fabrics, little mirrors, clacking rings and more.
If your infant is still young and not reaching, just looking, you might hook it to the stroller canopy like a mobile. Some parents also hook one to the diaper bag so it's always available as a distraction during on-the-go diaper changes or if you're out running errands and your baby starts to fuss. Any toy that travels with you can get dirty, but note that this toy should be spot-cleaned only; it's not recommended for machine washing.
$14.99 at amazon.comStacks of Circles Stacking Ring
You can practically hear your baby's brain whirring as they play with these nine differently sized rings in varying colors and textures. The clear ring even makes a rattling sound. The rings can be stacked in any order, which decreases frustration when stacking.
Join in the play and show your infant the difference in size between the large black and white ring and the small one. Then count from 1 to 9 as you put the rings on the pole one at a time.
Stacking the rings helps hone hand-eye coordination. In fact this has been lauded as an early STEM toy that can help kids learn sorting, counting, sequencing and recognizing what is the same or different about two objects. We like that the rings are easy for an infant to grab and manipulate. They will outgrow this, however, and be ready to move on to building blocks by age 2.
$6.14 at amazon.comBaby Toy Maracas
Shake it up! Toys that play music for your baby are not as richly educational as something like these egg-shaped shakers that let your child make the sounds. We love that they're each shaped like an adorable animal to catch your baby's attention, that there are textures to explore on their bellies and that each one makes a slightly different noise when shaken. They're a bit chunky but if your baby can't grip one at 3 months, they may be able to hold and shake them by 6 months.
Note that the sounds these make are pretty soft. We like that they're not cacophonous but if your baby is shaking them while you play music, they might be hard to hear.
$9.78 at amazon.comSit-to-Stand Learning Walker
Once your baby pulls to a stand and takes tentative steps, they're no longer your infant anymore — you're entering toddler territory. Help them along with a push toy your baby can use for balance as they stand and walk. This best-selling toy, which has tens of thousands of five-star Amazon reviews, is much safer than the kind of walker a baby sits inside, where they are essentially trapped. Your baby can let go from a push walker anytime they need to.
Your little one can first sit in front of this to play with all the toys on the activity panel, or the panel can be removed and used as a floor toy. They'll stay busy and hone fine-motor skills with the light-up piano keys, a play phone, gears that spin and buttons that, when pressed, deliver fun songs and vocabulary words. When your baby is ready to pull to a stand and work large-motor skills, the toy has a wide base for stability. Your baby can easily grab the green handlebar and push this four-wheeled walker.
The two AA batteries needed to get this started are included. The lights and sounds can get a little overstimulating but fortunately there are both high and low volume settings or you can turn it completely off.
$47.99 at amazon.comHow we choose the best infant toys
The experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute include parenting-product pros, Ph.D.s who are also parents and journalists who scour the market for the latest and greatest toys. Children's toys and gifts are tested all year.
This story consists of top trusted infant-toy brands and products that adhere to all federal safety standards for toys. For infant toys especially, it is critical that each toy has no choking hazards or pinch points. We also included toys that have proven over time to be durable and to hold interest for most babies. Finally, we surveyed child-development specialists outside of the Institute for both their general infant-toy recommendations.What to look for when shopping for the best infant toys
The first year is full of developmental milestones. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an infant's interaction with toys starts with them looking at a toy for several seconds at about 2 months old and progresses to a baby crawling over to play with a toy by about 9 months, with many small steps in between. (See milestones listed below.)
When deciding which toys to introduce in the first year, consider:
✔️ Age grading and size: Brands put testing, reasoning and science behind their age grading. If a toy is for 6 months+, your 3-month-old will likely be frustrated by it or completely uninterested. Any toy for ages 3 years or older might include small pieces, which are choking hazards and must be completely avoided during infancy.
Our advice: Though you might buy ahead in baby clothing sizes, like getting your 6-month-old some 12-month bodysuits, stick to toys that correspond to your child's age the day you buy them. Toys can age up, potentially being fun for years, but don't age down. (Your baby's reaching for their toddler sibling's toys notwithstanding.)
✔️ Materials and appearance: "Find toys of different shapes, sounds, textures and colors for babies to explore," Rothman says. Infants learn so much by first staring at toys and are especially drawn to ones with contrasting colors, such as toys in black and white. Then sometime between 3 months and 9 months, they will begin tasting, smelling, shaking and generally mauling their toys to learn all they can.
We like wooden toys and those made from materials such as organic cotton, but toys made from plastic are easier to clean and sterilize. Read each toy's care instructions. We also have the Good Housekeeping Institute's advice for the best way to clean toys.
✔️ Age-appropriate challenges: While newborns won't do much more than gaze at toys you hang near them, within a few weeks you can try moving a toy across their line of vision to see if they track it with their eyes. It's a very early form of playing together and your baby might only be able to do it for a short bit before needing a break and looking away.
You should begin to hand age-appropriate toys to your infant by about 3 months. "It's about reaching, grasping for objects, shaking, banging, using both hands together, mouthing materials to get information and building their sensory database," Rothman says. Once your baby is older than 6 months, you can look for toys that invite them to spin things, empty small toys out of a larger one and build. "At around 8 months, a baby's sense of object permanence will make hiding, looking and finding objects exciting," Rothman says. "That's why shape sorters and pulling toys out of something is so fun and elicits curiosity."
✔️ Opportunities to interact: Although babies benefit from exploring a toy on their own, it's also great when a toy sparks ideas for how you can play together. "It's about bonding with caregivers and having back-and-forth interactions," Rothman says. "You can babble and sing together." A few ideas to try:• Point to a toy and name it.• Play with the toy "wrong," like putting it on your head, to make your baby laugh.• Use a toy to entice your baby to reach for it or crawl over to it, and let them experience the success of getting to it.• Narrate what your baby does with a toy, to build their vocabulary, such as "I see you putting that round rattle in your mouth."• If the toy says phrases and sounds, repeat them and add some vocabulary, as in, "It said that's the letter A. That's the letter for 'apple.'"Guidelines on baby milestones
You can track your infant's development by watching how they play with you and their toys. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics, list these and other infant milestones with their corresponding age markers. Talk with your pediatrician if you think your baby is missing milestones. Every baby is different, but in general (and as it pertains to play) progression looks like this:
At 2 months, your baby:
• Calms down when spoken to or picked up • Looks at your face • Makes sounds other than crying • Reacts to loud sounds • Looks at a toy for several seconds • Holds head up when on tummy • Moves both arms and both legs • Opens hands briefly
At 4 months, your baby:
• Smiles on their own to get your attention • Chuckles (not yet a full laugh) when you try to make them laugh • Looks at you, moves, or makes sounds to get or keep your attention • Makes sounds back when you talk to them • Turns head toward the sound of your voice • Holds head steady when you are holding them • Holds a toy when you put it in their hand • Uses arms to swing at toys • Brings hands to mouth • Pushes up onto elbows/forearms when on tummy
At 6 months, your baby:
• Likes to look at themself in a mirror• Takes turns making sounds with you • Blows 'raspberries' (sticks tongue out and blows) • Squeals • Puts things in their mouth• Reaches to grab a toy• Rolls from tummy to back • Pushes up with straight arms when on tummy• Leans on hands to support themself sitting
At 9 months, your baby:
• Expresses being happy, sad, angry, and surprised• Smiles or laughs when you play peek-a-boo• Makes a lot of different sounds like 'mamamama' and 'bababababa' • Looks for objects when dropped out of sight • Bangs two things together • Gets to a sitting position by themself • Moves things from one hand to her other hand• Sits without supportWhy trust Good Housekeeping?
Experts at the Institute have been evaluating consumer products for 120 years. The Good Housekeeping Institute parenting pros test everything for babies, kids and teens. See our annual Parenting Awards as well as our Family Travel Awards for more great products for your family.
Former Chief Technologist & Executive Technical Director Rachel Rothman is particularly passionate about children's development through play. She sat on the ASTM toy safety committee for more than a decade for and is a Play Ambassador for the Toy Industry Genius of Play program, and she reviewed this story.
This article was written by Contributing Writer Jessica Hartshorn, who has covered the toy market for 25 years, previously for American Baby magazine as well as Parents magazine. She's one of the judges of the annual Best Toy Awards and keeps up with the year's hottest toys.
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