My Go To Baby Shower Gift

 

As someone with a huge family who works with kids, I've been invited to many, many, baby showers.  I pride myself on being an Ivy League gift giver and am always racking my brain for the perfect shower gift. A few years ago I started giving what has now become my go to gift- a basket of developmentally appropriate baby toys.  Since I specialize in play, giving toys is a must have for me! 

Each basket varies a little depending on my budget and who the basket is for.  This particular basket was for a mom who wanted more environmentally friendly baby gear (less plastic, a few hand me downs, more wooden toys).  It contained:

• Fabric Skip Hop Mirror.  Baby mirrors are a must have.  Babies love to look at faces and smiling at one's own reflection is an important social and communication milestone.  Mirrors are a great way to entertain babies during tummy time play.  Also, a mirror in front of her car seat was one of the only ways we kept my daughter from screaming at the top of her lungs every single time we took a ride in the car.
• Lamaze My First Fish Bowl I always give some sort of container play toy.  This is one of my favorites, although there are many, many variations.  Babies begin to reach into containers and take things out between 9-11 months and putting objects in follows soon after after.  
• Hand me down baby and a little wooden truck.  Both of these toys facilitate functional play, the beginning of pretending and the understanding of symbols (important for language development as well as cognition).  Some time between 9-12 months, babies start using objects like babies, trucks, cups, etc by function (rolling a car, kissing a doll, drinking from an empty cup).  The doll is a hand me down but came from Target.  It's the circo brand and you can only buy it in stores. It's my all time favorite baby (and I've tried and tested dozens in therapy).  It's just the right size (about 5 inches) for babies and toddlers and it's been a hit with all but one of my little therapy friends.
• Manhattan Toy Skwish I actually prefer the plastic, infantino version of this toy but I substituted the wooden version to honor the wishes of this mama.  These kinds of toys facilitate bilateral coordination (babies have to use both hands to hold it), and oral/tactile exploration of toys.  I also use it to help encourage visually tracking and object permanence.  Most babies find it very interesting and thus are motivated to track it with their eyes as you move it away from them or look for it once you've covered it with a blanket.  Also, the infantino version makes a rattle sound when shake it that you can use to give the baby a clue that it's under the blanket. 
• Rattles.  Okay, so the one I included in this gift is plastic (shh, maybe if we don't tell the recipient, she will be too tired to notice).  This rattle is cheap ($2!), easy to grasp, visually interesting and I have not met a single baby in 5 years that didn't like it.  It's one of my go to therapy toys.  I use it for everything- reaching and grasping, transferring objects from hand to hand, encouraging babies to take it out of a container, encouraging oral exploration.  My other go to rattle is this cage bell rattle.  I also included this Educo wooden rattle, too just to make the mama happy.   
• Please, Baby, Please This is my all time favorite book for toddlers.  The baby gets into all kinds trouble throughout the day that yields the perfect opportunity to yell "no!" while reading.  It also has a ton of illustrations of action words (crying, eating, sleeping, kissing). 

If I didn't have budget constraints, I would have included these toys, too:

• nesting/stacking cups- These help teach an understanding of size. Babies should be able to nest at least 3 by 18 months.
• fabric blocks- Stacking blocks is an important visual motor skill and knocking them over is just fun (not to mention a great time for exclamatory language like "Oh, no!" or "ka- BOOM!"
• shape sorter- This can be used for container play until the baby is old enough to start putting the shapes into the correct holes. 
• O ball- I love this ball. It may even make it into my top ten favorite therapy toys.  When kids are little, it's great for all the same reasons as the skwish toy.  When the baby is a little older (about 13 months) you can use to play roll the ball games and then even later, it's great for older toddlers learning to catch!
• Quack, Quack This is one of my all time favorite books.  The pictures are simple with a high contrast and it teaches animal sounds.