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How to Choose and Buy Toys for Babies – 12 - 18 months

Babies love to role play so they're now watching what you do really carefully. You're probably having battles with them now over the remote control, the home telephone and your mobile phone. Some babies can even switch on the entertainment centre.

Telephones

You can buy your baby his own phone so he can imitate you. This is the time to watch out for babies dialling 999 by mistake. You do not want an operator asking to speak to mummy!

Ride-on Toys

Ride-ons are very popular with the young toddler – motoring around in a coupe car or on a wooden trike is an important skill to master. There are many models available in the toy world so make sure you can accommodate them in your home before you buy. Some can be quite tricky to assemble too so have a DIY expert on hand to step in.

Electronic Toys

Electronic toys like “LittleTouch Leappads” from Leapfrog are also beginning to be of interest to baby but make sure you supervise as the books can be ripped apart by mistake. Babies are practicing language now so any toy that encourages them to imitate or find things is a must.

Toys for Creativity

Creativity is coming into its own too so look for ways of encouraging your baby to draw and paint. “Aqua Draw” by Tomy is a fantastic invention as it is a fairly un-messy way of allowing your baby to draw amazing things.

Toys for Building

Lego Duplo and Quatro should not be overlooked as baby enjoys sticking different objects together. This is something you can do together but don't get upset when baby destroys your dinosaur sculpture.

Role-Play Toys

Toys to also consider are ones that excite your baby's imagination – there are lots of role play toys like musical farm trucks and houses, cars and diggers. And toy trains are suitable for toddlers at around 18 months. Tomy produces ‘My First Train' which goes round a single track.

Toys for Outdoors

Outdoors, baby will be interested in climbing frames, slides and play houses so if you have the space they are always a good investment. Again some playhouses need to be put together by you so be prepared for a couple of hours of challenge.

To find out more about what to look out for when choosing and buying nursery toys visit our How to Choose and Buy a Baby Toy for Helping to Develop Different Skills section.

To find out more about the different types of nursery toy that are available for each age group visit our Types of Nursery Toy section.

To find out more about the different online baby and nursery toy shops and stores visit our Top Sites section.

To see what different nursery toy manufacturers offer visit our Brands section.

You can also find out more in our How to Play with Baby section.