Educational gifts..or other thoughts and ideas.....

btw all my sons were brought up on Lego and still on occasion play with it - duplo for the under 4s, as the Lego bricks can be hard to get apart - can't recommend them enough. And the Fisher Price school bus was a GREAT favourite.

Oh yeah..Duplos..I was trying to remember the name of those..thanks!

If I still had my Lincoln Logs Id probably still be playing with them too.

I have a 21-month old. She loves her Fisher-Price Little People toys. She loves building block towers. We have 2 sets of wood blocks and a set of Mega blocks (like big Legos). She enjoys her shape-sorter, which she just mastered. She can do simple jigsaw puzzles (5 pieces); I got a set of 3 at WalMart for around $3. She loves her board books, especially the Baby Einstein 'Neighborhood Animals' book. I really want to get her the magnetic drawing pad by Parents; she played with it at another child's house and loved it. Target carries them but every time I go the only ones left on the shelf have damaged boxes.

bromelaid...welcome to A2K and thanks for the nice list of things! What a great help that is.
I wish I had a Target, everyone else enjoys it so.

At 20 months, just something to cuddle.

Well, yes, he gets lots of cuddling

I think she means like a stuffed animal... something TO cuddle.

Stuffed animals are indeed big at that age. Dunno how educational they are, tho.

Okay...heres the problem I see with stuffed animals..yes, he has some he enjoys. The dog also has some he enjoys. It seems to me that at some point the dog and the child will enjoy each others and can I just say...I think they have enough going on already.

You didnt know that though

Besides with a big old dog he has a constant huggable companion.

Yeah, I know what you mean about stuffed animal overload. We just culled the herd recently.

I do agree with stuff animal overload. My daughter in law either buys (way too many for her income!) electronic toys or stuffed animals for my grandaughter who was 2 in July. I hate the electronic toys.

My kids played with blocks. I loved to see them so involved in building and 20 months is not too young to begin a block collection.

Yeah, at some point here Im going to have to go into the toy section...its just a scary thought.
Could be fun though, maybe.

The thing with blocks, as in wood blocks, is that they're heavy and fairly sharp-edged. Sozlet was still into throwing things at 20 months, and a thrown block can do serious damage.

Duplos/ Mega Bloks are smaller and lighter, though.

Sharp edged? I still have the wooden blocks my kids owned --which I had to buy almost too late because my former husband dragged his feet on them -- and they're not sharp edged. Duplos are nice and didn't you mention them?

Good point about the projectile impact
Could be the hidden reason behind all those stuffed animals as well

"Sharp edged" is relative. The ones we have are fairly rounded, and a favorite now, but I remember when we hastily took them away for later due to some close calls. The basic block shape accords edges that are sharper than most of the toys a kid under two would play with (and is part of why wooden blocks are usually labeled "3 and up.")

Oh, there's this kind, though:



They're light.

My daughter, born January 11, 1978, received alphabet blocks from my parents for her first Christmas. I was talking about the hard maple blocks. My kids had Legos and Duplos and Construx. I just wish we could have had the sort of coffee table with sliding drawers beneath for block storage that is available today.