Top 5 Toys For My One Year Old

Between Christmas and his birthday, Superman has recently received more toys than I can count.  When I was looking for toys to buy him I found that there just isn't a whole lot of help out there.  If you go on Amazon, you can't search for toys for a 1 year old.  The closest you can get is birth to 24 months...really, Amazon you need to rethink this.  Do you not understand how different a 3 month old is compared to a 12 month old compared to a 24 month old?  Craziness.

There are a few good lists if you do a Google search, but really I didn't even know what I should be looking for in toys for him.  I wondered:  What skills am I trying to foster in him through play?  What toys will grow with him?  What skills should a one year old even be working on?  Well I gave up trying to figure it out. We got him a big gift for Christmas (see below) and a big gift for his birthday (a wagon) and we called it good.  And it was great because everyone else knew better than I did and he ended up with some great toys and books!

Before I get to what he actually plays with, I was really grateful that some people gave us toys targeted for 18 months so he wasn't given all his gifts to play with at one time.   One of the cool toys for 18 months and older that I can't wait to see him play with is the Fix N' Learn Speedy (amazon says it is 6 months - 3 years but that isn't what the box says).

So what did he get?  Along with the toys I mention below, he got a bunch of new books (which I am really grateful for since we do story time 3x a day), bath toys, plastic beads, music, and stuffed animals.  There isn't a single toy that he doesn't play with on a daily basis...seriously, not a single one.  

So without further adieu, here are the top five toys Superman has gotten in the past month.

5.   B. Sugar Chute - Basically this looks like a big gumball machine filled with different colored balls.  Superman is obsessed with plastic balls that fit in his hands to begin with (thanks to the Playskool Explore and Grow Busy Ball Popper which we have had for some time, but is still one of his favorite toys).  I love that this provided him some challenge.  Of course, he could just reach in the top and grab a ball, but we were able to put it on the coffee table and teach him how to get the balls to drop and then how to pull them out of the little door at the bottom.  He struggled with this quite a bit, but once he learned to use two hands he was on a roll.  He also loves throwing the balls into the top after he has retrieved them from below. 

4. Count and Learn School Bus - The bus comes with 4 colored balls that have sensors in them.  When you put the ball in the special hole it tells you the color or the animal that is on the ball.  The top is also open so if they can't get it in the hole, they can still put the balls in the bus.  It took him a little bit to learn how to do it, but Superman loves to push the ball through the hole and watch them roll down the bus and out the door (the door opens and closes).  He does this over and over and over.  Downside to the toy? Both my husband and I have the song it plays stuck on our heads at this point. 

3. Mega Bloks Maxi Tub with 140 pieces - I wasn't sure if he would know what to do with the blocks and, frankly, he doesn't know how to build anything yet.  However, he loves to pull the pieces apart and to wreck anything we build.  The big thing that surprised me was how much he likes to open the lid, take out a piece, close the lid, put the piece on top or on the ground and then repeat the process over and over and over again.  It was the first toy that he really "played a game" with by himself.   

2.  Mega Bloks Cat Large Vehicle Dump Truck - It is so big that he can push it around the living room while walking.  He loves to throw blocks into the back, pull them out again or tip the truck over to get the pieces out (he knows that they are supposed to "dump" but he hasn't figured out how to unlatch the bin so this is his version of it 'dumping').

1.  Smart Trike - He loves this thing!  I bundle him up and we go for a walk and he literally sings the whole time.  I have never seen him happier than he is on that trike.  While he is still too little to pedal it, the pedals disengage so they don't move as you push it and there is a little platform that drops where he can rest his feet.  There are also rails on either side of him that keep him from falling off.  The push handle, rails, and sun shade remove so that it grows with the child. (I am proud to say that this was actually our gift to him from "Santa"!)



Note:   Although I am willing to do product reviews upon request, I was not asked to do these reviews nor was I given anything in return for my opinion in this post.  These were truly gifts given to Superman from our friends.
 

And ready to go!

Yesterday I posted about the realization that Superman had outgrown his infant car seat.  Today I am going to talk a little bit about what I did to find Superman's new seat.

Unless your child is over a year, the next car seat after the infant seat must be a convertible one.  Most state laws dictate that children must be at least 20 pounds and one year before they are allowed to be forward facing.  However, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),

"For the best possible protection keep infants in the back seat, in rear-facing child safety seats, as long as possible up to the height or weight limit of the particular seat."

With this in mind, I knew that I wanted to not only get a convertible seat, but one that would allow Superman to stay rear-facing as long as possible. 

So the first thing I do whenever I need to buy something new is go to Consumer Reports.  Sadly, this time they dropped the ball for me initially.  I didn't feel like their reviews on car seats helped me much and they were recommending some seats that had really low scores.  Frankly, I just didn't understand it all.

The next thing I did was post on my personal Facebook page that we were looking for a new seat and wanted recommendations.  I thought that I might at least get some leads and maybe some car seats to stay away from.  Of the 21 responses, all but one person recommended the Britax and that person had a Combi and an Evenflo.  The three main Britax car seats people had were the Roundabout, Marathon, and Boulevard.

At this point I did go back to Consumer Reports and found that the Roundabout was the highest rated of the three, but had the lowest limits for weight (35 lbs rear facing & 50 lbs forward facing) and shoulder height  (max 16.25 for both rear and forward facing).  All three have a max height of 49 inches.

Since I want Superman to be rear facing for as long as possible, I felt like the Roundabout was out of the mix for me.   When I looked at the Marathon 70 and Boulevard 70 the only differences was the side impact protection.  The Boulevard has extra head support in case of a side impact collision.  According to Consumer Reports, the Boulevard also had a feature that allowed for adjusting the harness height without having to re-thread it.   Consumer Reports also rated the Boulevard higher than the Marathon.

I went back and forth over which of these two to get.  Amazon had them both on sale and the difference in price was about $20.   Finally my husband told me to get the one that was rated higher.  So we got the Boulevard 70.

I will be honest, when I saw how big the car seat I was a little worried that I went a bit overboard.  We could have gotten away with the Marathon...but it turned out we couldn't install it in the middle seat (and wouldn't have been able to install the Marathon in the middle either).  Now I am grateful to have the extra side impact protection.

Resources:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

• Ease of Use Ratings (descriptions) 
• Ease of Use Ratings (actual ratings)

Child Restraint Laws (by state)
Seat Check.org
Car Seat Recall List

**Disclaimer- I am not an expert on car seats.  I have no certifications or documents saying I should be giving advice. Therefore, take what I say as one mom's experience and do you own research.  Thank you.***