0 to 6 Months Learning and Activities
Lovevery Toy Subscription Box
Price: $160
Includes: The Looker Play Kit (7+ toys and how to guide), The Charmer Play Kit (10+ toys and how to guide)
Babies don’t need much as far as toys for the first six months - rattles, crinkle paper, bright or contrasts patterns are about all you need. Babies also grow out of these toys quite quickly, so you can amass quite a stockpile of cute little unused toys if you aren’t careful about keeping things simple. I decided that having a toy subscription box was the best and easiest way to get the best toys for my little ones development without buying a surplus. And, they’d all look like they belonged together, which keeps the cluttered look down.
I looked at several different toy subscription boxes narrowed it down between KiwiCo and Lovevery. KiwiCo provides primarily STEM centered boxes. Their boxes for older children looked fantastic, but it seemed like they moved into baby and toddler boxes as more of an after thought. Lovevery seems to have done the opposite. Their boxes are Montessori based and focus on babies and toddlers.
Ultimately, I chose a Lovevery subscription for my baby’s first year and I loved it. The boxes came at the perfect time, the toys don’t look horrible, are all machine washable and entertained my baby at just the right learning level. I found that after a year the boxes seemed to have fewer toys I was interested in giving my baby, or could mimic for much less.
Now that my little one is older, I’m considering picking up a KiwiCo subscription, but haven’t pulled the trigger quite yet.
Lovevery Weekly Emails
Price: free
Included: weekly activities backed by research to help your baby grow
When I had my first baby, I wanted to know how I could help him learn and grow, but there’s so much information out there and I didn’t have time each week to go looking for new activities. This is where the Lovevery emails came in - each week I got an email letting me know about where my child was in their learning and an activity that would help him continue learning.
The Lovevery emails became one of the few subscriptions I actually looked forward to reading each week because they gave me manageable ways of playing with my little one and the research to back it up.
Books
Even though most people consider my husband and I “techy,” you’ll find my little one would much rather read books for an hour than sit in front of the TV for 10 minutes. (Which is great most days, but sometimes it’d be nice to sit down and watch a movie as a family…) I like to think that this love of books started very early on. Even at 2 or 3 months we’d read books to our little one and have him look at the images one the pages. He seemed to love this and it gave us some quality one on one time together. We built up quite a stock of books, and our collection still grows today. There are several series, though, that are family favorites.
Grumpy Monkey Series, 14 books but only some are board books, price varies based on format.
My First 100 Space Words, 1 book, $6.99.
My First 100 Art Words, 1 book, $6.99.
My First 100 Nature Words, 1 book, $6.29.
Stuffed Animals
Something that didn’t occur to me before having kids was how much entertainment kids get out of stuffed animals! These have been some of our favorite gifts for our little ones, and there are some seriously cute stuffed animals out there nowadays. My favorites are from Jellycat, especially the food ones from their amuseables collection. They are adorable and soft, and they hold up really well to being thrown in the washer and dryer! Some of the smaller ones are perfect for traveling as well.
The tags on Jellycat stuffed animals say not to put into the washer and dryer, but when they’ve been thrown up on, it’s either that or the garbage. Luckily I’ve never had any problems, but do it at your own risk.
Oribel’s PortaPlay Convertible Activity Center
As my little one got older I started the search for a little standing activity table for him. I looked for ones that weren’t overly stimulating (too many toys, lots of saturated colors, ones that made noise), that would look nice sitting out, and, ideally, ones that could grow with my baby. Oribel’s Activity Centers fit the bill. They are super cute with 6 entertaining and interchangeable toys. The three adjustable heights made it grow well with my little one. The best part? Once he grew out of it I could take off all of the toys and the seat and convert it to a little play table! By far one of the best large toys I’ve bought for my little one so far.
6 Months - 1 Year Learning and Activities
- Lovevery (The Sensor Play Kit, The Inspector Play Kit, and The Explorer Play Kit)
- Lovevery weekly emails
- Book Subscription
1-2 Year Learning Activities
- Lovevery block set
- Duplo legos
- Link to eco friendly child mat
- Build your own sensory bins
- Link to letter and number coins
- Healthy eating
- Travel books