Babies soon begin to take an interest in the world — grasping, chewing, rattling everything in their tiny hands. This is a great time to introduce developmentally-friendly baby toys that are fun and can develop your little explorer’s mind!
To help you and baby get started, here’s our pick of 18 developmentally-friendly toys suitable for babies between 6-12 months. And since babies outgrow things so quickly, we’ve made sure that these toys won’t break the bank!
1) Sassy Developmental Sensory Ball Set
Image Credit: Sassy/Amazon
This sensory ball set features rattle beads and tactile bumps, stimulating baby’s sense of touch and hearing. Your mesmerized little ones will also love crawling after these colourful balls, developing their motor skills.
Price: USD13.57 (around S$18.77)
2) Lamaze Peek-A-Boo Forest
Image Credit: Lamaze/Amazon
Babies just love playing peek-a-boo! This developmental book features peek-a-boo flaps that will have your budding reader gurgling in wonder.
The pull-out flaps encourage baby’s hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. And if your tot is already learning their first words, the six pages contain fun rhymes for bedtime reading.
Price: USD10.36 (around S$14.33)
3) Manhattan Toy Winkel Rattle and Sensory Teether Activity Toy
Image Credit: Manhattan Toy/Amazon
A teething toy made up of soft, safe loops for your growing one. This Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Blue Chip Award winner also doubles as a rattle, easy to clutch in little hands.
Price: USD10.69 (around S$14.79)
4) B. Toys B. One Two Squeeze Blocks
Image Credit: B Toys/Amazon
This set of 10 squeeze blocks is amazingly multi-functional. Tots can develop their fine motor skills by stacking the bright bricks, pique their auditory senses by squeezing the squeaky blocks.
As your baby advances, you can also teach them about the animal shapes and numbers embossed on the sides.
Price: USD13.99 (around S$19.35)
5) Manhattan Toy Classic Baby Beads Wood Rattle, Teether, and Clutching Toy
Image Credit: Manhattan Toy/Amazon
Wooden beads strung together make for a simple but surprisingly entertaining toy. Rolling and twiddling the tactile beads helps to promote gross motor skills in your baby. The water-based finish also makes it safe as a teething toy.
Price: USD12.99 (around S$17.97)
6) Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics Rock-a-Stack
Image Credit: Fisher-Price/Amazon
No baby toy box is complete without this classic stacking toy. With five bright-coloured rings to grasp and stack, your little one will learn to discern colours and sizes in an interactive way.
Price: USD5.29 (around S$7.32)
7) Bright Starts Clack and Slide Activity Ball
Image Credit: Bright Starts/Amazon
This quirky toy offers all-in-one sensory stimulation for your active tot. To engage their motor skills, little fingers can spin the adorable frog, clack the rings about, shake the rattle beads, and explore the textured handles.
Price: USD9.99 (around S$13.82)
8) Skip Hop Explore and More Musical Egg Shaker Trio
Image Credit: Skip Hop/Amazon
These cute little shakers are great for developing baby’s fine motor skills and auditory senses. The round animal figures — an owl, a hedgehog, and a fox — are easy to grasp in small hands!
Price: USD13.50 (around S$18.68)
9) Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes Music Toy
Image Credit: Baby Einstein/Amazon
Packed with baby-friendly classical melodies, this toy promotes auditory development in tots. Listening to these tunes can also encourage your little genius’ brain development — classical music primes our brains for spatial reasoning.
Price: USD7.99 (around S$11.05)
10) LEKA Cat Rattle
Image Credit: IKEA
Shaped in cat plushie form, tots will love cuddling this simple and irresistible rattle. It makes a soothing, low-level sound, well-adapted to sensitive baby ears.
Price: USD4.90 (around S$6.78)
11) Fisher Price Infant Butterfly Shape Sorter
Image courtesy: Fisher Price
This cute toy not only looks great, but is also multifunctional. It has six colourful shapes that are easy for your baby to grasp and sort. It also includes fitting blocks through the openings as well as matching block shapes– both of which help develop thinking, problem-solving, and motor skills.
Its also one of the ideal developmentally-friendly baby toys because of its fill and spill play feature for younger babies.
Price: USD10.59 (around S$14.16)
12) O Ball 1-Piece Rattle & Roll Car
Image Credit: O Ball/Amazon
This toy car makes a delightful rattle as it’s rolled across the floor, encouraging babies to crawl after! Besides honing the coordination of their limbs, tots also develop their fine motor skills as they grasp and push the car.
Price: USD5.97 (around S$8.26)
13) Tomy Hide & Squeak Eggs
Image Credit: TOMY/Amazon
This absolutely adorable ‘egg box’ will get baby’s hands busy! Tots can lift the shells to reveal six colourful chicks and press on their heads to hear them cheep. Your baby can also learn to sort the eggs by shapes.
Price: USD9.98 (around S$13.81)
14) VTech Drop and Go Dump Truck
Image Credit: VTech/Amazon
This learning toy is perfect for getting your bigger tot started on words! Buttons on the dump truck teach phrases, tools, and colours when pressed. Your little ones can also have fun with hand-eye coordination by loading the rocks and pushing and pulling the truck.
Price: USD13.88 (around S$19.20)
15) Baby Einstein Explore & Discover Soft Book
Image Credit: Baby Einstein/Amazon
With 4 crinkly fabric pages, your baby will enjoy turning the pages and absorbing their first words. Plus, the handy link loop means you can easily bring the book out — hung in the car or on your diaper bag.
Price: USD4.79 (S$6.63)
16) Sassy Wonder Wheel Activity Center
Image Credit: Sassy/Amazon
This multifunctional toy features spinning center pieces that develop visual tracking in your little one. With colourful, rattling beads and interesting texture points, all baby’s senses will be stimulated. The suction cup base is a convenient plus — you can attach it to any surface!
Price: USD6.00 (S$8.30)
17) Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Counting Animal Friends
Image courtesy: Fisher Price
Start your little reader on this book from Fisher Price. It includes friendly faces and exciting lights and sounds, as well as a playful sing-along song about animals, counting, and more.
Its also easy to handle and carry by your growing bub and helps develop your his/her literacy, scientific thinking, and thinking skills. By turning the pages and pressing on the sun, your little one is also introduced to exciting lights and sounds, thereby learning cause and effect play.
Price: S$14.89 (S$19.90)
18) Fisher-Price On-the-Go Breakfast (teether, rattle)
Image courtesy: Fisher Price
This cute little set is one of the best developmentally-friendly baby toys in the market. The set includes three sensory toys: a coffee cup teether that has rattle beads inside, a crinkle newspaper, and a textured doughnut rattle.
Tother, they are perfect for playtime-at-home or on-the-go.
All of these toys help your little one better develop his/her grasps, hand-eye coordination, and dexterity. Plus, the variety of colours, textures, and the sounds also helps stimulate your bubba’s senses.
Price: S$20.00 (S$15.07)
ALSO READ: 16 age-appropriate toys your 12-18 month old will love