Baby Toys

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Baby Toys

There are many things that change about a parent’s life when they have a baby. A full night’s sleep becomes a thing of the past. Down time fades in the rear view mirror. It’s not that all the changes that go into a new parent’s life are negative, but there are some tough changes to get used to. Perhaps the most stunning one is looking out for the well being of your child. A spouse is a partner, and while spouses often look out for each other, it is another level entirely to look out for a child that can’t look after itself. Parents find that they want to provide their children the best chances they can for success, all while shielding them from harm. One of the biggest aspects of that is purchasing the right baby toys.

There was a time when little thought went into baby toys beyond keeping them free of small parts or hazardous materials. But as the ultra-competitive nature of capitalism rears its ugly head, parents are striving earlier and earlier to give their children that extra edge over the ‘competition’. It started with private schooling, transitioned through ivy-league preschools, and now resides in baby toys like the ‘baby Einstein’ line of mentally stimulating toys.

Not that there is anything wrong with wanting the best for your child. The facts point towards quite the opposite conclusion. Wanting your child to do well and succeed is a natural sign of a loving and healthy parental relationship, and being able to express those feelings is a good habit to start. But you’d be hard pressed to convince anyone that a parent offering bribes to get their child into an ivy-league preschool is really thinking about their child over and above their own reputation. At that point the child is being used as a pawn to bring the parent more accolades.

Baby toys take a different approach. One of the most astounding things about babies is how much development they undergo in the first two years of life. They pick up the basics of language, something we still haven’t been able to program a machine to do. They learn to balance on two feet, and walk. They recognize people on sight, and a host of other accomplishments, what’s amazing is how little we know about these things.

Now babies have been developing long before any toy company was around. But we’ve found that certain things tend to aid in their development. Bright colors and large, uncomplicated shapes work best, because during the first year, the eyesight is one of the things that need development most. A newborn can only see about 12-18 inches from their face. Closer, or further away, and their eyes can’t focus on the objects. That’s why a newborn learns a parent by sound before knowing the sight of one. For this reason, when you shop for baby toys it’s a good idea to compare things like texture, mobility, or the sounds a toy makes as much or more than the color scheme.