Choosing Toys to Encourage Milestones

One thing they teach you in OT school, among many other things, is that babies and children learn through play. Think about it, play is a child’s main activity and they learn so many things through playing with various toys, playing among peers, and more complex play through sports as they grow.

So many milestones occur through the first year, and an important part in encouraging these milestones is a baby’s ability to engage in play with their toys. So how do we choose toys to encourage milestones through our baby’s first year?!

For more information on support your baby at home through play, join the Bloom by Infant Insights membership with resources that have helped over 1500+ parents & babies find peace & helpful resources to support their baby.

Choosing toys that are properly focused on a baby’s particular level of function is very important. There are TONS of toys on the market, all with specific purposes, but how do we know what toys are appropriate for our baby at what age? And how do we use these toys in play to encourage our little one’s movement and development.

You’re at the right place! This article will discuss selecting toys to encourage milestones through the first year, and also it will show how to use those toys to encourage milestones. Keep reading ⬇️

Your baby is a newborn, what toys do you need!?

When our babies are born, they do a few things from the first days: sleep, eat, and use the bathroom. But, from day one our little ones begin to take in the world around them. They also learn to create associations with their environment and their body.

A very important way they begin to take in their environment and explore their body is through the toys they interact with.

From 0-3 months, our babies are discovering their various senses. These senses include sound, sight, taste, touch, smell, and another that we are taught in OT school, proprioception or body awareness. We want the focus of their play time to nurture the discovery of these senses. So, when selecting toys are babies 0-3 months to encourage their milestones, we should select toys with sensory stimulation components.

When choosing toys for your 0-3 month old, choose toys that encourage your baby to explore to senses of sight, sound, touch, and proprioception particularly. These may be toys that are high contrast so your baby can begin to visually attend to highly stimulating items that are appropriate for their visual abilities. This may be a tummy time mat with black and white components, a black and white board book, or black and white toys that hang from their play gym. You can also present toys that encourage your baby to notice sound in their environment. This may be a musical plush toy or lights on a tummy time toy. Touch can also be a focus as many interacts with various textures or tags on their tummy time mat or the proprioceptive system can be engaged as your baby props over a tummy time pillow on their belly for body awareness and strength focus.

All of these toys are very important for babies 0-3 months and can be used to encourage head control in tummy time, awareness of hands and environment play, and begin to encourage visual skill development needed in the future for more complex activities. Toys can be used at this age to encourage baby to tolerate positions they do not exactly enjoy and a good rule of thumb is to use those toys to keep baby engaged and distracted. When working on head control and tummy time tolerance at this age, try placing toys up HIGH so baby has to extend head and increase neck strength.

Need toy ideas for this age? Check out some here!

Want more information on choosing and using toys to encourage milestones? Check out my class here!

So what about once your baby is 3-6 months?

At the 3-6 month mark, your baby has more head control and begins to discover their body more everyday. They may begin to notice their hands and feet, focus more on items at a distance, show a preference to toys, and engage in more hand based play. Your baby also begins to move from sensory play into exploratory play.

When choosing toys for your 3-6 month old, choose toys that encourage grasping feet and rolling skills by placing rattle socks on their hands and feet. You can introduce o-ball style toys to encourage grasping with both hands for increased hand skills. Your baby may also begin to bring hands to mouth more often around the 6 month mark, so various teethers are a great option to stimulate oral exploration. Your 3-6 month old may also enjoy crinkle books and textures books to continue to stimulate their sensory system. You may also continue using light up toys with your 3-6 month old to encourage exploratory play development as your baby presses areas that product a sound or light response. Tummy time is becoming easier for baby at this age, but tummy time pillows may continued to be used for baby’s enjoyment.

You can use these toys in play to encourage milestones like grasping feet, rolling, and increased hand skills. You can also encourage rolling skills by placing toys on the sides of your baby, so they are motivated to move. If using a play gym, you may place the toys to the baby’s sides to, again, encourage rolling skills. You may also use tummy time pillows to encourage baby to place arms straight and over the pillow. This encourage arm strength development needed for future milestones. When lying on their back, you can encourage your baby to grasp o-ball style toys for midline orientation and usage of both hands together. Both of these are very important skills for your baby. Your baby will enjoy interacting with crinkle books and may attempt to place in mouth which is great in preparation for solids. Your baby also learn by exploring items with their mouths, so they can continue to take in a various items in their environment.

Need toy ideas for this age? Check out some here!

Want more information on choosing and using toys to encourage milestones? Check out my class here!

So, now your baby is 6-9 months and they are beginning to development in many new ways!

At this age, your baby is beginning or has begun solids, may be rolling very proficiently, uses their hands more precisely, and may begin to crawl at this age. Your baby continues to engage in their environment through exploratory play. This type of play includes cause and effect play. At this age, your baby’s language development also begins to increase.

When choosing toys for your baby at this age, you should keep the above developments in mind. Choose toys that encourage sitting skills, like large block toys, push walkers, and activity centers. You also want to choose a variety of board books that your baby can easily begin to engage in, like open and turning pages, for language and hand skills development. You may also encourage sitting skills by allowing baby to play on vertical surface using suction or spinner toys. You may also choose toys that encourage more specific hand skills, like stacking rings and cups. Light up toys with sound may not be as frequent at this age, as your baby has moved out of a sensorimotor play stage. We will discuss what play with these toys may look like below ⬇️

When playing with your baby at this 6-9 month age, you can use vertical surfaces with toys at eye level to encourage your baby’s core strength and sitting skills. You may also have your baby sitting with the push walker at eye level for more sitting activity focus using toys. Your baby is beginning to gesture and babble at this age, so reading to your baby out loud is wonderful for language development. Use board books during this time and allow baby to help turn the pages for increased hand skill development. When using stacking rings and cups at this age, expect your baby to remove the items from the dowel. They will not quite be able to place precise shapes and cups, but this will come at the next development level. You can also observe cause and effect play in your baby at this age as they manipulate a toy in the same way over and over as it produces the same result. For example, spinning the spinner toy to elicit constant spinning.

Need toy ideas for this age? Check out some here!

Want more information on choosing and using toys to encourage milestones? Check out my class here!

9-12 months is really where the fun begins!

Your baby is lesBy s stationary now and much more BUSY! They are possibly crawling and walking at the end of this developmental range, so you can to choose toys that continue to encourage gross motor, hand skills, language, cognition, and social skills.

At this age, you can choose a variety of toys that encourage lots of milestones. You may choose push walkers if your baby is not walking independently at this age to encourage pulling to stand and independent walking. You may also allow your baby to engage in play with large knob puzzles to encourage hand skills and visual development. You can also encourage your baby to crawl and play in tunnels and use shape sorters for your baby to explore hand skill development and encourage problem solving. Board books continued to be great at this age and your baby may be able to flip the pages more proficiently and independently. Toys that encourage placement into small openings are great at this age including peg boards and ball drop toys.

During play at this age, encourage your baby to pull to stand on the push walker by having them begin on their knees. This will encourage continued gross motor development, including crawling and walking. Read books to your baby and take turns using the various toys to encourage language and social development. Your baby may not understand turn taking, but early exposure is never a bad idea! Your baby may also begin to place toys into openings with difficulty, so provide assistance to your baby as needed. Your baby is becoming much more proficient in hand skills and they may begin to imitate more complex movements like pointing at images. Model these movements while interacting with your baby to encourage these things.

Need toy ideas for this age? Check out some here!

Want more information on choosing and using toys to encourage milestones? Check out my class here!

So, the last stage before toddlerhood is 12-18 months…

By this age, our babies are walking and growing so FAST. Our babies gross motor skills continue to development into more coordination based tasks, like jumping, running, and riding push toys. But, after this 12 month mark our babies hand skills are just beginning! Our babies are also beginning to engage in play with friends in a more cooperative way and are showing their little personalities in their interactions with others. They have a nice neat grasp when retrieving small items and may begin to pretend play towards the end of this stage. Our babies may engage in more constructive play with blocks and toys as well. We want to encourage all of these things through our toy choices and play activities!

When choosing toys for your 12-18 month old, you want to keep in mind gross motor, fine motor, social, constructive, language, and continued cognitive play. We can select toys that challenge our babies thinking and problem solving skills. This includes toys like busy boards, pretend sinks and kitchen items, and coin and ball drop toys. These toys begin to stimulate our babies problem solving skills in wondering how things go from “there” to “there” or “open” to “close”. You can have your baby play with ride along toys and climbing gyms for more complex gross motor development, including balance and coordination. When selecting hand based toys, more complex is best. Busy boards that include doors that open and close, zippers, gears, and latches. Some of these components will be more complex for baby, but continued discovery and engagement will encourage learning. Constructive toys like large or small blocks are wonderful. Also magnetic tiles or any constructive based toy to encourage hand skills, cognition, and overall cognitive skills.

When engaging in play at this age, allow baby to problem solve as best as possible before intervening. Our babies learn through play, but also trial and error. When your baby is presented with a challenge, allow them to process and problem solve! Of course, intervene if they continue to have difficulty. Encourage your baby to complete stacking activities with a small amount of help at first. For example, when building a tower with baby, place 2-3 blocks in a stack and encourage baby to place the last on top. When using a peg board puzzle, place the puzzle 80% in an opening and allow baby to finish the rest.

Need toy ideas for this age? Check out some here!

Want more information on choosing and using toys to encourage milestones? Check out my class here!

There are TONS of toys and ways to engage in your baby’s milestones at each of these ages. This is not a comprehensive list, but a general guide. When choosing toys are your baby with milestones in mind, no toy goes unused or wasted! There is a purpose for them all in a variety of seasons. When choosing toys, try choosing toys that grow with baby so you can get the most bang for your buck!

For more information on support your baby at home through play, join the Bloom by Infant Insights membership with resources that have helped over 1500+ parents & babies find peace & helpful resources to support their baby.

 Thanks for being here!

Brooke, OTR/L