Our little ones grow so fast and they are learning about the world around them at an astounding rate. Their brains are making connections faster in the first 5 years than any other time in their lives. The brain continues to develop through use, it flourishes in caring environments and with stimulating activities to play, develop and learn. They also continue to practice what they learn.
In this post we will share some of occupational therapist and parent Emma Hubbard’s toy recommendations for 6-9 month-olds. Some of these items you may even already have. The baby gym is extremely popular, you can continue to use this and get your little one closer to the toys, to reach and grab those soft toys. As they grow older you can use the links and make them into a chain, a long rattle for your baby and also free 😊.
The O-ball is lightweight, easy to grasp, and easy to transfer between hands. If this is not for you, then you can go with lightweight and easy-to-grasp rattles. As part of their development, they will move on to rattles later. Emma likes circular rattles as they are easy to hold and move between hands.
“At this age, your baby is going to be teething a lot. So teething rings are really beneficial.” Emma continues “I would just look at those circular ones because they’re easy for your baby to hold and place in their mouth.” Teething rings are made out of different materials and many different shapes, keep in mind what you want to expose your baby to as they will chew a lot.
The next toy she recommends is a shape sorter, here it is not about getting the correct shape in the correct hole, it is about the action and coordination to drop the shape(post) in the container. You can use the shapes and a bowl for the same purpose. Towards the end of 12 months, they may start trying to get the circle in the correct hole.
Another toy recommended is the ring stackers. They can be used in 3 stages of development over the next 6-12 months. The development is in the play so the 6-month-old will pick the rings up and transfer between hands. The 9-month-old may want to remove the rings from the stack and the 1year old may want to add them onto the stack. This is Emma’s take: “at six months we can give it to them as individual rings, nine months they’re removing it, and then towards the end of the first year, they’re putting it back on, the rings on, not in any order though, just putting it on.”
To help with building communication skills and encourage talking with your baby Emma recommends Board books as well as touch and feel books. By 12 months they can work on the pointer and that pincer grip, by turning the pages.
The last toy Emma recommends is blocks as they help work on the three-fingered grip, once again at 6 months they will mostly be banging it on the closest surface, then later against each other. “But that’s something that they’ll use quite regularly, and then we can use it to post, so we can use it for dropping into containers. And then later on, we’re gonna be using blocks to build on top of each other. So at 12 months, you’d be wanting one block on top of the other.” she concludes.
To find what toys Emma does not recommend you can click this LINK
