12 BEST TOYS FOR BABY’S FIRST YEAR: ONE TOY FOR EACH MONTH

1 MONTH OLD: WRIST RATTLES AND FOOT FINDERS

Babies spend their first few weeks learning to turn towards sound, follow stuff with their eyes and strengthening their neck muscles.

They aren’t exactly ready for toys, but there are toys that are super useful for helping them develop all these skills. One of the best toys you could buy for a newborn is a set of wrist rattles and foot finders.

LAMAZE GARDEN BUGS WRIST RATTLES AND FOOT FINDERS

3 MONTHS OLD: BABY GYM

Whilst a three-month-old baby won’t make full use of a baby gym, it is a great time to introduce one. A lot of parents have them from birth, but it is easy to over-stimulate very young babies, so I think it is worth waiting until your baby is around three months to get the best from it.

This is the exact baby gym that my daughter had and she ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. We have some beautiful video of her happily guggling away whilst playing and experiencing this gym.

FISHER-PRICE RAINFOREST BABY GYM

The gym is the Rainforest Baby Gym by Fisher-Price. The gym has hanging activity toys, lights and sounds to give your baby a sensory experience that encourages them to push up during tummy time. 

This particular baby gym is great because you can move the hanging toys to different heights, dependent on what stage your baby is at.

The mat itself makes crinkle sounds when the baby is on certain parts of it and has a lovely satiny border, which is a sensory delight for babies.

4 MONTHS OLD: GRABBABLE TOY

By four months old a baby can usually raise their arms up when they’re on their tummy, it’s also around this age that babies are able to roll over fully by themselves and reach for objects. This is a great time to introduce a squishy, grabbable ball-shaped toy.

MANHATTAN TOY WINKEL RATTLE & SENSORY TEETHER

The Winkel Rattle and Sensory Teether from Manhattan Toy Company has intertwined brightly coloured soft tubes that make it eminently grabbable, which is great for developing fine motor-skills, chewable, great for teething, which can start as young as four months old (it is BPA-free) and the WInkel is easy to shake and the rattle has a lovely satisfying rattling sound.

The Winkel is yet another Manhattan Toy that has won a ton of awards, including the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Blue Chip Award. In short, it’s a design classic that any four-month-old baby will love.

5 MONTHS OLD: ACTIVITY CENTRE

Whilst it’s super important to spend plenty of time each day playing with your baby, stimulating them, encouraging their motor-skill development and of course simply enjoying spending time with them.

It is also at around the five month point that you will also really value having somewhere that your baby can play safely and amuse themselves for short bursts of time, so that you can actually get some stuff done!

INFANTINO 3-IN-1 SPIN & STAND ENTERTAINER

Whilst I can wholeheartedly recommend the Jumperoo, as mentioned in my big list of baby development toys, I’m including the Infantino 3-in-1 Sping & Stand Entertainer as my recomendation for an activity centre here.

I think the Sit & Stand Entertainer is particularly great because it converts from something babies sit and play in, to something that they can cruise around and play with. So, you will actually get even more use out of it.

6 MONTHS OLD: STACKING TOYS

Six-month-old babies are super keen to interact with the world around them. Things they can generally do at this age include sitting up with support, beginning to push up to a crawling position and picking up an object and pass it from one hand to another.

Six-month olds are also rapidly ticking off cognitive milestones, this is the time when everything they grab goes to their mouths to try and make sense of it, they will reach for anything and everything and they move in the direction they want to go.  

FISHER PRICE STACKING RINGS

So I think that six-months is the perfect age to introduce your baby to stacking toys. They can be blocks, cups or boxes or rings.

My suggestion for the best baby toy for a six-month-old is the Fisher Price Stacking Rings because they are supremely grabbable and an absolute classic.

Babies won’t be able to stack by themselves at this age, but they will have lots of fun grabbing them, watching you stack them for them and of course, knocking them down, which will undoubtedly bring on a bout of giggles. 

You can also use stacking toys to start tuning your baby’s ear to counting as you stack and you can also use them to start teaching your baby how to take turns.

8 MONTHS OLD: PULL TOY

Most babies will be crawling by 8 months, they are keen to explore and have great little imaginations. This is a great age to introduce a pull toy, which will encourage them to move around, hone fine motor skills (grasping the string) and teach them cause and effect, especially if the toy has sounds and extra things moving on it when it is pulled. 

VTECH PULL AND SING PUPPY

We had a classic wooden pull toy, but I absolutely love this VTEch Pull and Sing Puppy and can totally understand why it gets such positive reviews on Amazon.

The puppy plays music when it is pushed or pulled – it’s little nose lights up with the music, which is so cute. The puppy has buttons to push and really encourages interactivity and imaginary play.

9 MONTHS OLD: PUSH WALKER

At nine-months babies are well and truly into the cruising stage, pulling themselves up, cruising around holding onto furniture and whatever they can find. So I think a must-have is a push walker.

You’ll want a walker that is both sturdy and that your baby can get a good grip on. I’d also suggest you go for one that does more than just allow your baby to push it around.

VTech SIT-TO-STAND LEARNING WALKER

With all the above in mind, my suggestion is to go for this Amazon best-seller, the VTech Sit to Stand Learning Walker, which encourages interactive play and imitative play with its fun gadgets (which baby doesn’t love a phone to imitate their parents?!) music and lights.

10 MONTHS OLD: FIDGET TOY

Ten month old babies are usually sitting upright, crawling, standing up and cruising, making sounds oh and they will put ANYTHING in their mouth!!

Ten-months is a great time to encourage your baby to play with toys that help a combination of their fine motor skills and cognitive skills. 

FISHER-PRICE MY FIRST FIDGET CUBE

The great thing about the Fisher-Price My First Fidget Cube is that it is great for chucking in your bag as something to entertain your baby when you’re out. The cube has got different activities on each of its sides, things to click things to toggle, things to press, in short, lots of things to keep give your baby’s fine motor skills a workout alongside giving their cognitive skills a boost. There are sounds that accompany all the activities, so this is a thoroughly entertaining toy for a ten-month-old.

11 MONTHS OLD: SHAPE SORTER

By eleven months babies are usually able to pick up small objects using their thumb and forefinger, this is a great time to introduce a sorting toy.

GREEN TOYS SHAPE SORTER

This Green Toys Shape Sorter will help stimulate your baby’s fine motor skills and cognitive skills as they try to fit the shapes through the correct shaped holes.

I particularly love Green Toys because they use 100% recycled plastic in their toys.

12 MONTHS OLD: MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

Wow, we’re at 12 months, a whole year old!! It’s amazing to think how much a baby changes and grows in their first year of life.

One of our daughter’s favourite and most-used first birthday gifts was a little red piano. I can’t say we always loved the sounds that came from her efforts, but oh my she had fun!!

So yes, 12 months is a great age to introduce a musical toy your baby’s toy armoury.

BABY EINSTEIN MAGIC TOUCH WOODEN PIANO 

The Baby Einstein Magic Touch Wooden Piano is simply magical. The great thing about this piano is that babies can either create their own music or play along to classic tunes. And a big plus is that it has a special LOW VOLUME for when you need a little quiet in the house and a HIGH VOLUME for big performances!!!!

Related: How to plan and host a wonderful first birthday party

MORE BABY TOY CONTENT

I really hope my list of the best toys for baby’s first year has proved useful to you.

One other thing that I wanted to add is that you could always pop some of the toys on your baby shower wish list, that way you wouldn’t have to rely on buying them all yourself or hoping that someone will buy you one as a gift.

Finding yourself fascinated by baby toys?! I do have an even more in-depth post on the best developmental baby toys for the first 12 months of your baby’s life. I’ve also put together a post on the best building toys for babies up to preschoolers.