Best Wooden Baby Toys Rated 6 Months To 2 Year
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If you are good sensory toys for you baby if you want, you're probably looking at it too wooden toys.
Toys like this wooden stacking tower from Melissa & Doug, full of cheerful colors and a challenging game with different geometric shapes. I think every child needs a stacking tower :)
But there are also other types of toys that are very good for development. In this guide I take a look at the 8 best and what you should pay attention to when buying.
Let's take a quick look at the options first. Then I'll go into more detail about each of these choices.
Best wooden stacking toys for babies
A very fun stacking toy with 21 geometric shapes that you can combine or put back on the three pillars of the sturdy wooden base.
Best Cheap Wooden Stacking Toys
This Montessori toy combines a magnetic fishing game with stacking, stringing beads and a balance game.
Best wooden stack train
A nice train that you can pull along with the rope, but the best part is of course that you can build it the way you want.
Best wooden toddler puzzle
Where shape puzzles have a wooden handle on each piece, this one does not and the animals can more easily participate in imaginative play.
Best Classic
The nails are stuck in the wooden bench so that it is also suitable for small children and fun from about 2 years.
Best wooden cause and effect gears
Gears always have something magical for a small child. That's why the Melissa & Doug Caterpillar is so educational.
Best wooden toy cars for babies
These cars are already suitable from 1 year. Due to the rounded shapes there is nothing to hurt yourself and they are easy to grip.
Best activity cube
Jouéco is such a brand that makes fun and affordable wooden toys, and this cube is a very nice addition to the playroom.
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Wooden baby toys buying guide
There are a number of things to look out for when buying wooden baby toys.
Age
It must of course fit the age of your baby but still provide enough challenge.
Toys they return to to try again and again are often where they can discover something.
With babies you want to be extra careful that there are no small pieces that they could put in their mouth. Therefore, all sets on this list are safe for your baby.
Replayability
Much of the replayability has to do with the age challenge it presents.
It's how often they return to it after playing it a few times, and that's mostly down to what they can discover.
Toys with many different things for them to discover therefore do well.
An example of this is the activity cube from Jouéco or the stacking train from Janod.
Bright colors are also very important at this age as they develop their sight.
Sustainability
Is the toy made sturdy? A baby can't grab that hard yet, so that's usually good. But the toys can suddenly fly across the room.
Wooden toys must therefore be solid, solid wood works best and preferably without small parts.
The B. Toys wooden cars work so well because they are solid, and Melissa & Doug's sturdy wooden shelf is also perfect.
They made the small parts of plastic because otherwise it would not be strong enough.
Top 8 Wooden Baby Toys Reviewed
Melissa & Doug Geometric Stack Tower
- Sturdy base and wooden pieces
- geometric shapes that fit together gives an extra challenge
- Not much else to play with
A very fun stacking toy with 21 geometric shapes that you can combine or put back on the three pillars of the sturdy wooden base.
Children from about 1,5 to about 3 years old will love to match the different shapes or sort them by color.
Because they have different thicknesses, it is also quite fun to build, but it is mainly a shape sorting game.
The square building blocks in particular are a nice addition. They collapse in half, which creates an extra building challenge. You don't often see that in shape sorters.
Boby Fish Stacking Game
- Many games in 1
- Wood is sturdy and well made
- Trying to put too much in 1 game and just not well worked out
Boby's game is also very well built. It is made of Romanian beech wood.
This Montessori toy combines a magnetic fishing game with stacking, stringing beads and a balance game.
They themselves indicate that this is most suitable for 18 to 36 months, so 1,5 to 3 years.
- You can put the fish on the correct color on the play mat and then fish them up
- The large whale can be used as a base for stacking
- The back of the whale has rods to push the fish on
- There is a cord to thread the fish
It is indeed a lot of fun to play, but I have the feeling that they wanted to cram too many games into 1.
It's just not the fishing game. The fish should stand upright because the metal tip is on their nose. This is because there already had to be a hole in the middle for threading and stacking.
The threading is fun, but there are much more fun threading games. The whale is a bit crazy with wooden bars behind it because the fish can also use them.
You get a lot of game for your money and you don't have to buy such things separately, but it's not all that.
Janod Sophie the Giraffe Train
- solid wood
- Very cute theme
- Small pieces can be dangerous
A nice train that you can pull along with the rope, but the best part is of course that you can build it the way you want.
With 17 parts you can make a new creation every time. Each wagon has its own shape when they get the pieces from the train they have to put them back in the right place.
It is recommended from 18 months, but there are also very small pieces that fit in mouths, such as the red chimney pieces.
With these toys you should definitely stick with them, or put the smaller pieces aside until they are a little older.
Crocodile Creek 16 Piece Zoo Shape Puzzle
- Very sturdy construction
- Cute animals and bright colors
- Quite pricey
This 16 piece puzzle is very cute with so many cute animals.
Where many such shape puzzles have a wooden handle on each piece, this one does not. This also makes it easier for the animals to participate in fantasy play.
We also have such an animal puzzle from Djeco and it does have that, but those animals never participate on safari.
The puzzle is very sturdy with bright colors. A really nice set to give.
Melissa & Doug Hammer Tap Pounding Bench
- Happy colors
- Nice system that makes nails come up alternately also gives a game element
- They grow out quickly
This is a fun classic. A hammer game with brightly colored figures.
The nails are stuck in the wooden bench so that it is also suitable for small children and fun from about 2 years.
It is quite a well-developed system with a wood under the nails that swings back and forth as you hit the nails. If you knock one down, the other will come up again.
This makes it a bit more fun for toddlers to play longer, until they realize that one keeps coming up.
Of course perfect for training fine motor skills and hand eye coordination.
A disadvantage is that you don't have to hit very hard to get the nails down, which is also why they will grow out quickly.
Melissa & Doug Rainbow Caterpillar Gears
- Gears are perfect for cause and effect
- Learn colours, building and fine motor skills
- The gears are plastic
- Sprockets fall off easily
Gears always have something magical for a small child. That's why the Melissa & Doug Caterpillar is so educational.
It certainly holds their attention!
It is a solid wooden base. What a pity that the gears are made of plastic, but that makes it a bit sturdier.
Because of the different colors, your baby can also learn color recognition right away and it is of course wonderful for fine motor skills.
The gears fall off very easily when you pick it up. Of course, that's also learning cause and effect, but that means you're probably picking up all the time with a baby.
Maybe it's part of it, but for many parents this leads to frustration.
With 1,5 years they can also put it together again themselves.
B Toys Free Wheee-Read
- Well rounded and easy to grab
- Cheerful colors and fun design
- Don't drive very well
- Not sturdy enough for rough toddler play
These cars are made for the smallest children and are suitable from 1 year old. The rounded shapes mean there is nothing for them to hurt themselves on and they are easy to grip.
There are 6 wooden cars with a few different shapes. The kind of handle in the passenger cars is also funny. So they can grab it easily.
Actually, these are the cheapest cars on the list and not Melissa & Doug's.
But they are not really toy cars for your toddler. Then you better buy another one. They don't roll very well and the design is therefore a bit crazy.
But a very nice first set for your baby. The overall score of 6.7 is a bit low because I rated it on the same points as "real" gaming cars.
Joueco The Wildie Family
- Very solidly built
- Fun activities
- Very large
Age: 1+ years
What it is: a wooden cube measuring 14 cm x 13 cm x 13 cm with lots of things for little fingers to play with.
An activity cube offers a child many possibilities to play with and there are many different ones available. The advantage of a cube is that it is easy to store.
For example, this one has a pretty big bead maze to play with and my son really started to get the hang of it when he had it for a while.
At first he mainly played with the beads on the side and tried to get the blocks on the other side in the right holes as with a shapeshifter (more reviewed here!).
But the advantage of the cube is that you can easily store the bead maze in the cube itself, say upside down, so that cleaning up the rather large toy takes up minimal space.
Jouéco is such a brand that makes fun and affordable wooden toys, and this cube is a very nice addition to the playroom.
It is solidly made, there are no dangerous parts and it offers enough to keep children of different ages entertained.
It really is the kind of thing he keeps returning to pick it up again and try something new with it.
For example, we think it is good to rotate toys from time to time so that he does not have too many at once, and he discovers these again and again in the bedroom or in the playroom.
As far as I am concerned, the toys of this brand only have advantages, and they also look great on the console.
Besides the attractive appearance of the toy, it is also safe, made of natural materials and extremely durable. The environment plays a very important role at Jouéco.
It is time to think a little more about our nature and future, and therefore buy more products that are environmentally friendly.
Less plastic, more wood!
Conclusion
Babies still have so much to discover. The handfeel of wooden toys is then perfect for exploring nature.
With these sets, your little child not only has something fun, but also something that is good for their sensory development.
Always something to do for the holidays or rainy day?
Play Choice now has the ultimate activity book collection, with over 60 pages of fun coloring pages and educational puzzles.
Joost Nusselder, the founder of Speelkeuze.nl is a content marketer, father and loves trying out new toys. As a child he came into contact with everything related to games when his mother started the Tinnen Soldaat in Ede. Now he and his team create helpful blog articles to help loyal readers with fun play ideas.