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Dad Play
Choosing Toys for Your New Baby
By Lisa A. Goldstein
According to O'Brien, another feature dads should look for is a toy that encourages what older babies are bound to do, such as crawl around. When the child is over the age of 1, play involves more elaborate imitation due to improved memory and imagination, and such features can encourage their child's growth.
"By toddler age, Dad will want to provide train tracks and wooden cars with magnets that stick one car to another so baby can play 'choo choo' and learn how to put the wooden tracks together with new hand skills," says Alice Sterling Honig, consultant and professor emerita of child development at Syracuse University. "Also, large pegs on a pegboard make wonderful push-in and pull-out toys."
Honig advocates the use of balls – whether they are soft ones for babies or light, large ones for toddlers. Babies just need interesting, safe and colorful toys to look at and later keep in motion. Popular toys for toddlers include cornpoppers and windup toys with handles they can turn, says Honig. They also love a teddy or doll to nurture. "Toddlers will copy the tender, nurturing ways Dad has enfolded them after a bath or snuggled them for a reading time or tucked them into the crib," she says.
Picture books for daily parent reading are important. "Buy large picture books with a colorful picture per page, such as a daddy or mommy and a baby animal together," says Honig. Some of the farm-building toys are good for the older toddler to start pretend play of putting the animals in different places such as the barn, corral or watering trough.
Honig lists other good toys: a toy wagon, puzzles and containers with objects. "A pot, a plastic pail, a toy that has many shapes a toddler can push through openings that match the shape are all enjoyable toys," she says.
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