Toys for a newborn

[dramamama04]

My son is only a week old and I'm realizing that I don't have any toys for him. The only thing I have is a mobile. Do any of you have any suggestions?

[Raidra]

Colwyn didn't really pay attention to any toys until he was over a month old. At that point, he really liked his Gymini. He also liked his swing and bouncy seat.

Some of the Lamaze toys like Celeste the Sun are good.. Colwyn still plays with them and he's nearly 11 months old. I'd go for more simple toys for your son, as everything is so new to him.. you don't want to overstimulate him.

Some of the Linkadoo toys would be good, too. Anything with vivid, high contrast colors.

[Chelsey333]

I found rattles at Walmart that are very thin, so that my ds could get his fingers around - but this was when he was about a month old.

[lampes]

When DD was a newborn, she couldn't stay in the quiet alert state for more than a few minutes at a time so it wasn't worth it for us to have toys. It wasn't until 6 weeks or so that she played a little on her gym mat. One thing that I wished I had bought, in retrospect, were the gym mats that had a sewn in boppy pillow to help with tummy time.

I also bought the wrist rattles but I don't think she found those very interesting. Another early toy we got at the Pottery Barn - it was a small stuffed animal that had a sort of flat surface. She really liked that as a newborn and still likes it today.

[sdbc]

Rory couldn't care less about any toy until about 2.5 months old. Before that, she would look at her mobile in her ocean aquarium swing, trees, and a Wyeth print we have in our bedroom (trees and the print were by far her faves). At about 3 months, she started liking her Freddy Firefly toy. At 4 months, she still likes Freddy, but her favorite is this Leap Frog alphabet ball. She can't do all the stuff on it yet, but she LOVES it. She creeped across the floor for it at 3.5 months!

BTW, in our case, the $60 spent on the activity gym was completely wasted.

[tlowe]

The Winkel by Manhattan Toy was a huge first toy & teether hit for Hagen because of its size. She also loved Buzz(The Bug) by Lamaze.

[hellosmiletoday]

The first thing she appreciated was probably a Lamaze mirror attached to her crib.

She also likes the elephant on the Tiny Love Gymini, the Tiny Love Windchimes, Lamaze Pupsqueak, some fabric blocks by Fisher Price, and lately the toy that I added on to her Graco swing.

Christina
Mommy to baby girl 5.8.04

[Julierc]

I can add to the thumbs up for the Gymini. Isabelle loved looking at the toys if we lined them up next to her. At first she didn't seem to like having them dangle down over her, but eventually she got comfortable enough to reach for them and bat at them with her hands and feet.

We also used to prop board books up around her and she seemed interested in the pictures. Some of our favorites were Eric Carle's _Very Hungry Caterpillar_ and Sandra Boynton's _Hippos Go Berserk_.

Julie
Isabelle's mom
DS expected 12/04

[sdbc]

Ah yes, Rory did like the crib mirror from almost the beginning. We got the Sassy me in the mirror. No batteries required!

[megulis]

DS loved looking at pictures above his changing table. I first put black and whites, and then I put flash cards. He loves looking at pictures in books still. He really didn't get much into toys until he could move around a bit, at least side to side.

I think the most practical things for newborns are things they can grab. Usually that means something wirey, fabric, or stringy (not a piece of string!) He loved his taggie. He also liked those dangly things that have a velcro and elastic, so it dangles a very small stuffed animal from a stroller etc. Instead we'd just give it to him; just be careful of the velcro since it is scratchy. We got it at Walmart. He liked the ones he could squeeze in his hands to make crinkly sounds.

He also liked the small stuffed animals at PBK that comes with an ark. He loved sucking on the ears or trunk of the elephant. A week or two ago, I went to PBK, and it was on sale.

[entttc]

The Winkel, a mirror, and a cloth book called "fuzzy bee and friends".