The Myth of Baby Toys

When you're a first time parent you want to provide your child with the right kind of stimulation. You look for toys which are going to help the childs development and are perfectly safe for your little angel to play with. The magazines are full of advice on what things to buy and you would never dream of buying anything which is for an alder child for fear of it being swallowed or breaking etc.. Like everything else, you're guided by experts saying what you should and shouldn't get and a good dose of guilt to make sure you toe the line.

Then the next little angel comes along, except this time the house isn't full of pedagogically designed plastic toys in big bright colours but instead full of little metal cars, plastic dinosaurs and wooden trains. It would be impossible to stop them playing with these toys, especially once they start crawling, as you can't watch them 24-7. Actually its my two and a half year old who stops my daughter from playing with things she's too young for by ripping them out of her little hands a shouting, 'Ney, sluta bebbe, Tristam's tåg!'. I susupect though that his motives are not very altruistic.

So here is a list of my 7 month daughters top five things to play with, which can be used as a reference for any first time parents.

1. Old nappies tied up in a hundpåse


2. Power cables for lamps


3. Woooden trains from IKEA


4. Squeeky plastic bath duck


5. Small toy cars

Also, what strange kind of sixth sense lets a baby know the difference between the old, broken mobile phone she is allowed to play with and daddy's nice new one she is absolutelu not supposed to dribble all over?