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Do You Want Playtime To Encourage Your Baby's Development? Here's What To Look For When Buying Educational Baby Toys Online

27 December 2017 by Clarence Horton

Baby toys not only give your infant something fun to play with, but they can be a great help in encouraging his or her physical and mental development. Babies have a natural curiosity about the world around them and toys provide a safe outlet to build motor skills and develop spatial awareness. Toys that provide interesting tactile sensations for your baby or toys that can be stacked on top of each other are a great choice for this age. If you want to purchase educational baby toys online that will aid in your child's development, here's what you should look for.

Choose Toys That Allow For Multiple Methods Of Play

As an infant, it's important for your child to learn spatial sense and how to interact with the outside world using his or her hands. As your child grows older, he or she will benefit from toys that can be used in role-play situations and toys that aid in learning. A toy that's versatile enough to provide all of these things will grow with your child and is a great toy to own.

The venerable alphabet block is a good example of this; infant develop motor skills by stacking the blocks on top of each other and the raised letters encourage sensory development. As your child grows, he or she can learn to recognize blocks by letter and then arrange them to form short words. Arranging the blocks into certain shapes such as a home for stuffed animals or a city for small dolls provides the chance to role-play. It's a toy that can last your child from infancy all the way to preschool.

Choose Toys That You Can Play With, Too

One of the most important things you can do as a parent is to play with your child in a supportive way. Talking to your child during playtime helps to build language skills, and role-playing with your child helps him or her understand the outside world.

To this end, it's better to purchase toys that can be used creatively in a cooperative way rather than electronic toys that require little parental intervention. Toys that allow you to build things or act out real-world situations will contribute to your child's social development and understanding of the world. This applies even to infants; even though they might not be able to fully understand you yet, speaking with them will aid their language development.

Choose Toys That Are Safe For Your Baby

When you're buying baby toys online, you need to take care in making sure that the toys you purchase are safe. Since infants often suck on toys, the toys should be made of non-toxic materials that are easy to clean with soap and water. Although wood is a traditional choice for baby toys, it may not always be the best material for infants since bacteria can hide in the pores and survive cleaning. You also need to make sure that there are no small parts that are easily broken off of the toy, as these can be choking hazards. Once the toy is in your possession, make sure it doesn't have any manufacturing defects that can cause small plastic bits to break off if your infant bangs it against a hard surface. You'll also need to avoid toys that have long ribbons or strings, as these can also be choking hazards.

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