8. Cotton Balls

Cotton balls can be safely chucked at each other without fear of bodily harm.  They can be thrown in the air and showered down like snow on the heads of your little ones or can be scattered on the floor and swished in to make “snow” angels.  They can be put in a cup, and taken out of a cup, and put back in a cup.  They can be used for artsy activities like these or these.  They’re also pretty dang easy to clean up, which means you can let the kids go crazy throwing them around the kitchen and you won’t regret that decision later.

Okay, I know some of you guys are thinking, “Okay, is she going to ever tell us the REAL toys she’d recommend?”  (Even though, seriously, I already did).  But here are some goodie gift ideas to tell the people who want to know what baby needs:

9. Stacking Cups

 I don’t know exactly what it is, but all kids, from infants to toddlers seriously LOVE stacking cups.  If I could only keep one toy for my girls, this one would be it.  They can be chewed on, banged together, scooped with, poured with, and all of these things can happen in the living room, in the bathtub, in the sandbox, at the beach, you name it and there’s a way those stacking cups can play a part in any type of fun. Bonus: They can usually be put on the top rack of the dishwasher for easy cleaning.  

10. Blocks

Building, Mega, Duplo, Lego, the kind that stick together in all different ways.  All awesome and another infant-through-toddler type toy.  “Boom” was one of my daughter’s first words, she loved all the building and stacking and had even more fun watching the teetering and tumbling.

11. Puzzles

Puzzles promote problem-solving while simultaneously working on fine motor skills. Any toy that helps a kid learn that he or she is capable of figuring something out is pretty darn cool in my book.  They are varnished with images of animals, cartoon characters, space, flowers, robots, or anything else your kiddo might be into, which means there are plenty versions out there that your kiddo will dig too.

The bottom line is this: kids don’t need all kinds of crazy contraption or expensive gadgets, they just need something to spark their own internal curiosities and allow them to engage in imaginative play.  

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