As babies become toddlers, they start to take more of an interest in playing with toys. The challenge comes in avoiding the parade of plastic toys and keeping things a little better for your tot and the planets. Here are some suggestions:

Plan Toys Punch and Drop

Plan Toys in general makes great toys for kids. They use organic recycled rubber wood for this to. It’s made really well too.

The Punch and Drop is your classic hammering toy. Kids have played with these for a long time, and there’s a reason why they keep making them. Kids enjoy hammering. The colors are great too.

And you can’t forget the lack of batteries!

Educo Alphabet Abacus

The Educo Alphabet Abacusis the kind of thing that can hold my toddler’s attention for a long time. She’s very much into anything brightly colored and fairly complex. Pictures in books and magazines get her babbling too.

This has the advantage of giving her something to look at as we sing the alphabet song. She loves music of any sort and even babbles along. Using any sort of visual may eventually help her to start pointing out letters at a young age without quizzing her all the time. Early exposure helped my older two, anyhow.

iTunes

No, it’s not a toy as such. But it’s a great idea to expose your baby to all kinds of music very young. But rather than buy a musical toy, just find appropriate music to download on the computer you already own. Get that toddler dancing!

WONDERWORLD Puffy Dragon Ride-on

Is the WONDERWORLD Puffy Dragon Ride-on cute or what? I mean really!

My one year old is very much so into ride on toys. She started liking them before she could walk, of course. This looks nice and soft as well as fun.

And I could never resist saying my child rides a dragon! He’s made from rubberwood and biodegradable fabrics.