What babies actually do with toys, month by month

Babies don't need many toys, and they don't need clever ones. What helps is a toy that fits what they can do right now: something to look at before they can reach, something to grab once they can, something to bang, drop, fill, empty and stack as each of those skills turns up.

The CDC publishes milestone checklists for each age, listing what most babies can do by then. They are a good guide to choosing toys, because they tell you what your baby is working on. Below, each stage starts with a few of those milestones in plain words, then what they mean for play.

A note before we start: every baby gets to these at their own pace. The ages are when most babies can do these things, not a deadline. If something worries you, your pediatrician is the person to ask.

Birth to 3 months: looking

By 2 months, most babies look at your face, watch you as you move, look at a toy for several seconds, and open their hands briefly.

Your face is still the best toy there is. Beyond that, young babies like things to look at: high-contrast pictures, a mirror at tummy time, a mobile. If you use a crib mobile, like our wooden mobile with felt bears, hang it well out of reach, and take it down at five months, or sooner if your baby starts pushing up on their hands and knees. From then on they can grab it, and parts of a mobile are not made to be pulled on.

3 to 6 months: grabbing

By 4 months, most babies hold a toy when you put it in their hand, swing an arm at toys, and bring their hands to their mouth. By 6 months, they reach to grab a toy they want and put things in their mouth to explore them.

This is rattle season. Look for something light, easy to hold, and safe to chew, because everything is going in the mouth now. A ring shape is the easiest for small hands to grip. Our crochet bunny rattle is a crocheted cotton animal on a beech wood ring, and the crochet rattle with a wooden handle is a similar idea with a stick-shaped handle. Both are soft enough that a bonk on the nose doesn't end in tears.

Textured sensory balls are good from about three months. They are easy to grab, the bumps are interesting to chew and feel, and later they roll just far enough to be worth crawling after.

6 to 9 months: exploring

Around this age babies sit with more confidence, which frees up both hands. By 9 months, most move things from one hand to the other, bang two things together, and look for something when it drops out of sight.

That last one is why babies start dropping things off the high chair on purpose. It is an experiment, not a campaign against you. Toys that stay put help at mealtimes: a suction toy like our silicone roller coaster, with oak beads that slide along a track, sticks to a high chair tray and keeps hands busy while you get the food ready.

Bath time gets more interesting too. Squeeze-and-spray bath toys are a hit at this stage, and they come with one honest caveat: anything that sucks water in can grow mold inside. Squeeze them out after every bath, let them dry, and replace them when you see dark specks.

9 to 12 months: in and out

By 12 months, most babies put something in a container, like a block in a cup, look for a toy they saw you hide, and pick up small things between thumb and finger.

This is the age of filling and emptying. A box of blocks, a basket of balls, a set of plastic cups from the kitchen: tip them out, put them back, tip them out again. Hiding games start working now too; a toy under a cloth is a whole afternoon.

Banging becomes music. A simple instrument, like one from our wooden music range (a drum, maraca, castanets or xylophone), gives the banging somewhere to go. Pick one and see what they do with it before buying all four.

12 to 18 months: using things properly

By 15 months, most toddlers try to use things the right way, like a cup, a phone or a book, and stack at least two small objects. By 18 months, they play with toys in simple ways, like pushing a toy car, and they copy you doing chores.

Now shapes and sorting start to make sense. A silicone sorting toy works for a long stretch: first the pieces are for chewing, then for pulling out, and finally for matching to the right hole. Stacking cups and blocks belong here too. And anything that looks like what you use, such as a spoon, a small brush or an old phone with the battery removed, will beat most toys.

18 months to 2 years: problems to solve

By 2 years, most children hold something in one hand while using the other, like holding a box and taking the lid off, try switches and buttons on toys, and play with more than one toy at a time, such as putting toy food on a toy plate.

Play starts to have steps. Stacking rings by size, simple puzzles with knobs, a toy kitchen, a set of animals. The wooden Tower of Hanoi is a good example of a toy that grows up with a child: at two it is a stacking toy, rings on pegs. The actual puzzle, moving the whole tower one ring at a time without putting a bigger ring on a smaller one, is something to come back to at five or six.

Fewer toys, rotated

One small study from 2018 put toddlers in a room with either four toys or sixteen. With fewer toys, they played with each one for longer and in more varied ways. That matches what most parents notice at home: a full toy basket gets tipped out and ignored.

Try keeping six to eight toys out and putting the rest in a cupboard. Every week or so, swap a few. The ones that come back feel new, and you find out quickly which toys your child actually uses.

A word on "Montessori"

You will see Montessori on a lot of toy labels, including some of ours. It isn't a type of toy. Montessori is an approach to education, and the toys that fit it tend to be simple, made of real materials, and focused on one skill at a time, with no batteries doing the playing for the child. Plenty of good toys fit that description, whether they say so or not, and a wooden toy isn't better just because it is wooden. The question is still the same: does it match what your child can do right now?

Safety, briefly

• Check the age label on every toy. "3+" usually means small parts, which are a choking hazard for children under three
• A quick home test: if a toy or piece fits through a toilet paper tube, it is too small for a baby or young toddler
• Battery compartments should be closed with a screw. Button batteries are extremely dangerous if swallowed
• No long strings, cords or ribbons on anything near a baby, and no toys in the crib while they sleep
• Check teethers and soft toys for tears, loose threads and cracked wood now and then, and replace anything that is falling apart