First Year Toy Review, Part I

My husband Andrew has a great mindset that he has shared with me about making purchases: When you buy something, think about the day you will one day have to dispose of it. Children are not babies for very long, though it may seem like it at the time. Because I am keen on helping my family save money, I try to purchase toys with high standards of quality that will last a long while. Because my son is Herculean, I try to ensure that all of his toys are built to withstand something akin to a nuclear blast. And because I recognize that children are in a continual state of development, I try to find toys that will grow and develop with Jackson, rather than be discarded as "too young" before the purchase price of the toy has been validated.

The toys I am highlighting today are ones that I bought for my son when he was 5 or 6 months old. He is now 27 months old, but we still find time to play with some of them. What I like about each of these toys in particular is that they have many developmental stages of play for a child.

Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack

Price: $10

Size: Small/Medium

Age: 5 months+

Durability: Medium-High

Pros: The simplicity of this toy is what makes it great for babies. They can actually hold the individual rings; they can chew on the support stand; it's "rockable" so it doesn't tip over too easily when an uncoordinated tot bumps it accidentally. They also have modified the top ring so that instead of being strictly a hollow, red donut, it functions as a semi-clear, semi-opaque red rattle.

Cons: The tower of the stack can fit into a child's mouth up to a point. If you have a child with a particular large mouth, she may be able to hit her gag reflex, though I haven't yet seen this become a problem. The tower and stack can be used as a hammer, so your little Bam-Bam may reek havoc on your toes as you walk past.

Educational Value: Standard colors make it easy to identify color names to your child. Helps teach order of operations for stacking, since the base is wider than the top and limits how the rings can be stacked. Helps develop fine motor skills for placing the rings on the stack.

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Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics, Baby's First Blocks

Price: $13

Size: Small/Medium

Age: 5 months+

Durability: High

Pros: There are numerous parts to this, but not so many that a parent can't keep track of them. The toy is a container and is designed to help children put the blocks through the right shape hole. Who doesn't love a toy that encourages kids to be neat? The blocks themselves are very durable and are well-designed to avoid injury: All edges are smooth; the pieces are VERY well structured so that babies can chew on them and slobber on them and not bust them, plus they can hit them on anything without making even a dent. While each shape is hollow, there is a vent hole in the center to prevent the child from accidentally gaining suction and getting the toy stuck on any body part. The pieces all fit easily within the container, which has a convenient carrying handle. The yellow lid is a great attractant (and may be the only part the child wants to play with for a long time), too!

Cons: This is really nit-picky, I know, but one of the shapes is really hard to name. When I play with my son, I like to be able to identify the shape, color, texture, etc. The triangle, star, circle, and square are fairly simple. But the fifth shape could be called a plus, an X, a cross, or whatever other name you might imagine for that shape. Ideally speaking, anyone who plays with this toy with your child will be in agreement as to what shape-name to associate to that piece.

Educational Value: This toy is great for helping a baby learn basic colors and shapes. Each shape will only fit into its own shape hole in one particular orientation, so there's no cheating there. Believe it or not, it's a tough concept for a baby to learn that convex and concave shapes can match one another. (Think about it: you wouldn't give a 4-month-old a puzzle.) Each shape comes with a matching piece that is the same shape and color, so you could help teach matching skills as well. The hole in the middle of each shape matches the exterior shape (e.g. the star shape has a star hole) to help parents and caregivers guide children to learn how to sort shapes.

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Fisher-Price Stack & Roll Cups

Price: $10

Size: Small

Age: 4 months+

Durability: Very high

Pros: This is the most cleverly constructed simple toy I have ever encountered. The Stack & Roll Cups have been a favorite not just with my son and his compatriots in babyhood but also with parents. They are that awesome. Like the old school stacking cups (which I also recommend but am not profiling today), these can stack on top of one another into a tower. They also nest well within one another. But what the normal stacking cups can't do, but these can is to join together to make balls. Each cup has a hole in the end that is about an inch in diameter, and the smaller ones have extra ventilation holes, "just in case". There are 10 cups in all, which can make 5 balls simultaneously, but each "cup" can form a ball with both the next cup larger and the next cup lower. AND you can stack any smaller cup on the back of any larger cup. As if that weren't enough, they included another little ball with a smiley face and a jingle bell inside. (For a while, it seemed like the jingle ball was enough for Jackson and friends while us parents and other adults played with the cups. They really are fun!) Kids can smack them around, fit them together, stack them, and roll them around as balls or even bring them in the bathtub. The favorite, of course, is to stick the jingle ball inside a ball made from the cups and set your child loose chasing it, fingering the ball inside, and shaking it around. WAIT! There's more! I've saved the best for last! Not only can your runt gnaw on these things (and get great little cup-shaped red marks on her face), but they store up really compactly. Because of the way the jingle ball fits into any of the cup-balls, and the way that any cup can form a ball with the next larger and next small size, you can make one big nested ball out of all the pieces. This whole set can be stored neatly together in an area the size of the two largest cups forming a ball.

Cons: The sophistication of the toy is lost on babies. Also, because there are 10 cups, the manufacturers had to use more than the standard set of readily name-able colors, so there can be some awkward moments as you try to encourage your baby to chase down the "ummm...yellow-green cup".

Educational Value: Each of the standard rainbow colors is represented in a cup, plus a couple of extras to show that not all color names are so clearcut. The colors are also ranked in size by rainbow order with the smallest cups being in the purple portion of the spectrum and the largest being red. The cups have numbers on them, as well, concatenating the order in which the cups will stack as a whole. (Of course you could also make a stack with all evens and another with all odds. Or you could nest the evens and nest the odds. Or....) When you make the cups into the 5 simultaneous balls, other patterns are apparent: each in the pair of cups forming it has the same shape (e.g. a star) engraved in a ring on it; each in the pair are of the same or nearest color name (though the red and orange ball gets a bit awkward to explain). There are soooo many educational opportunities with this toy that even through much of elementary school it can be a useful demonstrative tool.

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That's all for today, folks. I've got lots more to review, but I'm tired. I promise they are not all Fisher-Price toys! It just so happens that Fisher-Price has some high quality toys for children for the first year. Playskool and other brands dominated the ranks for many of our toys for the second year, which I'll get around to profiling when I finish up with first year toys. Stay tuned for more baby toy fun!

Toy Review: Toys for the First Year

Many parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, friends, and guilty-conscience acquaintances want to buy toys for children but have NO IDEA what to get them. At some point, we've all been that person shopping for the kid whom we rarely see and have little to no idea what she'd want for a toy. When the child is a baby, finding the "right toy" can seem even less clear-cut for some people. So, what I've decided the world (heh, I flatter myself) needs is some idea of what to get for children of different ages, based on my experience with my own son and other children in his general age group.

When you plan to purchase a toy for a child, the first consideration needs to be: is the parent going to be happy with this toy? Maybe the toy is a gigantic Tonka truck for your newborn (yes, my MOM did that to me); maybe it's a robotic dinosaur that roars (and terrifies your 2-year-old). In these situations, the toys are not unwanted in and of themselves, but they are really age-inappropriate.

Of course, the gift might be something that is categorized as being for a child's first year and have so many bells and whistles that it annoys the crud out of anyone who is sane enough to like a bit of quiet (including the child). Maybe it's visually overstimulating to the point where your child just avoids it (like this Discovery Elephant from Infantino).

Other considerations are the child's capability to play with the toy and what the child is likely to do with it. Most babies can't even hold things with their hands for about the first 3 months, so anything they use for entertainment before that has to be automatic or parent-controlled. Also, for the first year and often beyond, pretty much anything the child holds has the same destination: the mouth. If you suspect lead paint, barium paint, small parts, sharp edges, easily broken bits, or any other method by which a child could get hurt by breaking something or putting it in his mouth (such as choking!), then DO NOT give it to a child who hasn't reached the 12 month mark yet. Ideally speaking, a child under age 3 years should have NO ACCESS to anything that is dangerous, including pen caps, loose change, Legos, and Barbie shoes.

Also, believe it or not, expensive does not mean good. Yes, generally speaking, higher quality children's products do have a higher price. However, just because you spend $80 on a rocking giraffe, do not expect that the child will necessarily get $80 worth of enjoyment out of it.

When it comes to toys for the first year, simple is ideal. Most children under 12 months are happy most of the time with a half-crumpled water bottle to squeeze and chew. Aim for that mentality. In fact, for the first year there is very little need for toys at all except as a distraction technique. Babies will play with whatever surrounds them in their environment. Give a baby a solid wood drink coaster with concentric grooves in it, and she will chew on it, bang it on furniture, and touch its various textures. To give a child this age a toy that plays 50 digital songs and "teaches" a foreign language that the parents do not speak is overkill--and runs a serious risk of overstimulation.

Overstimulation is the technical term to describe a lot of seemingly different behaviors in young children. An overstimulated child will tend to be crankier and more withdrawn. If a child experiences too much overstimulation (such as excessive television and movies and video games), she will eventually come to expect the world to entertain her instead of finding her own entertainment. A baby is seldom troubled with the feeling of boredom. Everything in life is new and exciting (like that electrical outlet you forgot was under that table and that fork that went missing recently), and the most interesting things to a baby are those that help the child learn about the world she has joined.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has some great guidelines for parents on age-appropriate toys and activities:

One- to Three-Month-Old

• Images or books with high-contrast patterns
• Bright, varied mobile
• Unbreakable mirror attached to inside of crib
• Rattles
• Singing to your baby
• Playing varied music from music boxes, CDs, records, or tapes (and I'll add in mp3s here)

Four- to Seven-Month Old

• Unbreakable mirror attached to inside of crib or playpen
• Soft balls, including some that make soft, pleasant sounds
• Textured toys that make sounds
• Toys that have fingerholds
• Musical toys, such as bells, maracas, tambourines (Make sure none of the parts can become loose.)
• See-through rattles that show the pieces making the noise
• Old magazines with bright pictures for you to show her
• Baby books with board, cloth, or vinyl pages

Eight- To Twelve-Month-Old

• Stacking toys in different sizes, shapes, colors
• Cups, pails, and other unbreakable containers
• Unbreakable mirrors of various sizes
• Bath toys that float, squirt, or hold water
• Large building blocks
• "Busy boxes" that push, open, squeak, and move
• Squeeze toys
• Large dolls and puppets
• Cars, trucks, and other vehicle toys made of flexible plastic, with no sharp edges or removable parts
• Balls of all sizes (but not small enough to fit in the mouth)
• Cardboard books with large pictures
• CDs, tapes, music boxes, and musical toys
• Push-pull toys
• Toy telephones
• Paper tubes, empty boxes, old magazines, egg cartons, empty plastic soda/juice/milk bottles (well rinsed)

[All the above bulleted data was pulled directly from Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, Birth to Age 5, Revised Edition (link goes to 5th Edition, newer than my copy) which is a publication put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This book can be obtained free of its $20 price tag by joining the Publix Baby Club, which sends you a free copy just for joining.]

You'll notice that nowhere in all of that was a recommendation that you overload a child with glamorous, flashy toys. Many people have remarked that if you give a child a toy, he will spend a greater amount of time playing with the box it came in. Save yourself the money and just give the kid the box!

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll highlight some toys that have proven to be good all-around buys. I am not affiliated in any way with toy manufacturers or distributors, so I'm completely unbiased (and unfunded, heh). All toys that I will include for recommendations for the first year are durable and will easily tolerate a slobbery, strong, teething baby and "survive" with barely any signs of wear.

Post Partem, Part I

Since a few people have complained that the last few posts weren't gross enough...let's talk about postpartum issues.

Everyone tosses around the phrase "postpartum depression", but you rarely get the joy of hearing about the other stuff.  Perhaps because it's considered impolite?  Pardon me while I go off in a corner and laugh.  You know what's impolite?  Not telling the truth about the facts of life to those who are yet to experience some of them.

People have babies around just at the time they are least capable of handling them.  Consider the following:  Women spend months on end in discomfort, gaining weight and feeling exhausted, losing sleep and then, when pregnancy comes to a halt, there's labor and delivery and/or a C-section.  It's a grueling, painful, scarring, traumatic, and gory event.  When all that work is done, suddenly there's a cranky, crying little weasel of a thing demanding food about every two hours around the clock--for months on end!  And what's more, if the child accidentally oversleeps that two hour period (as long as 4 hours between feedings), the doctors say to wake them and feed them!  This little weasel also wants to be kept free from its own excrement, yet it insists on continually soiling itself.

And through all that, somehow Mom and Dad have to figure out how to care for themselves.  Mom is expected to try and remember to continue to nourish herself and get sufficient rest, and Dad is expected not to go insane while Mom is greatly incapacitated--and has comparatively paltry recourse for calming the child due to a lack of mammaries.

And Mom is sore.  Maybe she tore.  Maybe she was cut.  Maybe she had a large surgical incision made through her abdominal wall and has a belly full of stitches.  Walking is painful.  Sitting is painful.  Perhaps just moving at all is painful.  But that is secondary to the child because even more painful is listening to the sound of a crying baby.

And what's more:  the blood just never seems to stop flowing.  During pregnancy, Mom's blood supply increases by nearly half again what she had.  Well, she doesn't get to keep it all.  Sure, some goes with the baby, and some leaves at the birth, and some more leaves with the placenta and cord.  But there's more.  Lots more.  And it wants to come out as soon as possible.

Some wonderful people along the way designed some very long, hygienic, disposable pads for postpartum bleeding.  They are too small.  In order to be useful, they need to be chained so that one goes in front and overlaps somewhat a second that goes further toward the back.  If you are a particularly large woman, it's conceivable that you might need three at a time.  I'm not kidding.  At 5'8" (1.73m), I'm hardly what you'd call petite, but I'm not fat either, and to cover the span of gore, I needed this doubling.  Later, after 4 days or so, I was able to start substituting Poise and Serenity incontinence pads, which hold more fluid than the traditional feminine hygiene options.

And then there's the groin pain.  The hospital offered me pain killers.  I was allowed a strong dose of naproxen sodium (Aleve), and while it helped, it was more of a numbing than anything.  Same with the canister of pain-relief foam and the tube of hydrocortisone cream they gave me.  I was continually aware of the pain.  Thankfully, the hospital staff were also innovative.

Part of the pain in the groin is from swelling.  Anyone who knows much about first aid knows that ice helps to reduce swelling.  But who wants to put ice on their feminine delicacies?  Well, I did, though obviously doing so was tricky with all the red tsunami issues in the region.  The nurses did something very smart:  they took a disposable newborn diaper (which is, of course, absorbent and somewhat designed to prevent leaks) and found one end of the crotch region which was open like a pocket.  Ice was crammed into said pocket, and the diaper was introduced to my nethers.  Relief!

Now, another consideration.  We civilized folk understand that having blood all around is something of a health hazard.  And we aren't keen on handwashing a bunch of the stuff out after all that other work.  What does one wear?

While still at the hospital for recovery, I wore the Hospital Gown of Impossible Modesty again.  But obviously that wasn't going to hold my pads to the area of interest, nor was a newborn diaper going to fit around my thighs and hips.  Some genius whom I could kiss a thousand times over created some totally awesome underwear.  This underwear is purely a mesh of gentle elastic material.  It's lightweight and net-like, and super stretchy.  It's just strong enough to hold things together but sympathetic enough not to remind a new mom of her injuries.  I took home as many pairs as I could acquire and even managed to send them through the wash a few times and reuse them before finally donating them to a mom planning a home birth.  Part of me was tempted never to wear any other kind of underwear again...until I stopped needing pads.  Turns out the comfort level was dramatically reduced when mesh meets tender flesh.

The hospital staff gave me certain requirements before I could leave.  Immediately after I was done with the octopus and pony show, I met my first requirement:  peeing.  Owing to the extra hydration from the saline drip, I more than made quota there.  They also kept asking me if I had any gas.  Apparently you can't leave the hospital until you are farting properly.  Let me tell you, it's very strange to be regularly asked by strangers if you are passing wind.

One benefit that I experienced (and I'm not sure how common this is) was that I didn't have to have a bowel movement until 4 days postpartum, and it was relatively easy since I had stayed well hydrated.  Andrew and I drank an entire 24 pack of bottled water during our vacation at the hotel--er, I mean, our stay at the hospital.

Showering was tough, but I was not allowed to take a bath, nor did I want one given that I absolutely did not want to try getting back to a standing position afterward.  For the postpartum mom, I suggest disrobing (and rerobing) while in the bathtub.  I did not realize how keen gravity was to help me make a mess and ended up smearing blood on the floor in a vain attempt to clean up my drippings before more exited my person.  At least it wasn't my floor, so it was somebody else's problem in the end.

The Aristocrats.

Okay, just kidding, but seriously, the whole experience was full of all sorts of nastification.  Still, there were bright spots.  I was up and walking around immediately after giving birth.  I was able to take pictures of Jackson napping on Andrew for the first time, just a couple hours afterward.

My mother-in-law (MIL) and then, shortly thereafter, my own mother traversed their separate drives (each in excess of 2 hours) and gladly snuggled with their new grandson.  My mom had already been made a grandmother twice over via my sister's reproductive habits.  My MIL had not, as Andrew was an only child, and she dubbed herself Nana.

Nana and I had not had a great deal of time to get to know one another in the less than a year's time we had known one another, but she soon got more than her fair share of time with her only daughter-in-law as she stayed the next 10 days to help us adjust to our own new roles as Mama and Dada.

Next up, a review of nursing and postpartum doulas, and (I promise) an end to the postpartum grotesquerie.  We'll start a new kind soon enough.

Useful Prenatal/Post Partum Literature (A Serious Post)

Living as we do in the so-called Age of Information, those with unfiltered access to the Internet no longer have any excuse not to know or be able to discover just about any piece of knowledge we desire.  There are some who take this to extreme and insist on knowing the ins and outs of the anatomy of every person willing to provide a visual demonstration.  Others prefer a more cloistered lifestyle, sequestered from carnal knowledge until marital vows are pronounced.  Still others are generously populating the Internet with all kinds of useful, useless, or incorrect information, so the seeker of wisdom may have to rely on his best judgment to determine what advice or principles to follow.

Good friends to those making a quest for details on pregnancy, labor and delivery, and child rearing are the well-matched pair of Google and Amazon.  I scarcely need inform my visitors of the existence of the magical realm Google has invented, infecting the world wide web with a notion of purifying websites and webtools down to their clearest and most efficient forms, and providing a search engine unparalleled by any guru or librarian in the history of the world.  Amazon long ago learned to be molded by the will of the people and has become a reference tool with a variety of measuring sticks on hand for evaluating as well as purchasing literature, among its many other traits.

Additionally, Andrew and I made use of our spare time during my pregnancy at local bookstores.  We felt then and maintain now, with our son currently 14 months old, that for us to be successful parents and maintain positive relations with one another, we needed not only to comprehend the imminent future but to have some glimpse of further horizons.

For a relationship to survive the strains of the first year with a child, both partners must be committed.  As much as possible, they need to agree in advance as to how to handle given situations that might arise.  They need a plan:  Who will care for the child?  Breastfeed or bottle feed?  Who will handle night wakings?  How will chores be divided in the new regime?  What sort of allowances will be deemed acceptable?  What behaviors are deal breakers?

Yet in order to know what things to discuss and attempt to resolve as best as possible in advance, it helps to have a guide (or several) indicating what issues you are most likely to encounter.  This is where the Age of Information becomes your friend.  Andrew and I were fortunate in that the literature we selected to aid us in our pre-parenting and early parenting processes were all very helpful in their own regards:

• What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff is the more modern equivalent of Dr. Spock a generation or so back.  One of the greatest aspects of this book is that it is frequently updated to include newer information and insights into the experience of pregnancy.  A wealth of knowledge pervades the text, derived from reputable sources and even including an acknowledgement that pregnant women are not always occupying the status of married or even necessarily heterosexual.
  

• Great Expectations by Sandy & Marcie Jones provide a weekly update on what experiences to expect throughout pregnancy.  Each week is numbered in several ways including fetal age and number of days remaining until your due date.  Each also indicates the size of your baby, the stage of development achieved, what is happening to you as the mother, and some basic tips for the general time period.  The book is very clearly arrayed with lots of graphics that include periodic glimpses at the changing shape of the mother's belly and the growing and changing shape of the uterus and its bundle of joy.  Great Expectations also shares a good deal of information and planning help for the birthing side of things as well as that often ignored post partum period.
  

• The Modern Girl's Guide to Motherhood by Jane Buckingham is a much better guide than the cover leads one to believe.  She uses a lot of straight talk that is great for those who really want to know what to expect.  An excerpt:  

  I don't know if it's some unspoken mother's code, or if mommy veterans are simply trying to protect us delivery virgins from the inevitable, but for some reason, no one--and none of the books for that matter--told me how downright painful recovery is. ... Everyone tells you about labor.  Somehow they forget about recovery.

  The bulk of the material, though, is best directed toward offering suggestions for how and when to do things.  The timelines for what to expect with your child were GREAT.  I still use this book to help keep track of what vaccines Jackson will be getting and for what milestones he should be expected to achieve at each stage.
  

• Be Prepared, A Practical Handbook for New Dads by Gary Greenberg and Jeannie Hayden is an excellent primer for parenthood--and it's hilarious!  The drawings are wonderful and the diction is well directed at the male brain.  This book has some great and innovative ideas for those "Now what?" moments.  One section provides a breakdown of the distinctions in infant cries for hunger, fatigue, colic, etc. while another gives useful suggestions for remaining upright at work.  For each age bracket of infancy, the text offers ways to entertain a child that cost little or no money, as well as ways to use your child as a source of (deliberate) exercise.

These are just a few of the resources you can use to help prepare for a wee one.  But if you lack the funds to buy anything but the barest of essentials, consider that most of the information provided in any book is derived from publications by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  The AAP is considered the authority by most Western pediatricians and prints a large number of books for helping parents do their job.  Many places offer their books for free.  The most common publication of use is Your Baby's First Year (available for purchase here).  If you live in the southern United States, you can apply for the Publix baby club, which is free through the grocery store chain.  Publix will then send you an expanded version of this book, entitled Caring for Your Baby and Young Child for free (USD$20 value), in addition to a bunch of great coupons and a wonderful regular newsletter with tips for your child's current age group.  This expanded volume contains helpful information from the AAP for children through age 5 years.

In the end, you as the parent are the one who has to make all of the decisions.  Being informed can help you make better decisions:  To breastfeed or bottle feed?  Natural childbirth or epidural?  Co-sleep or crib sleep?

I hereby give you permission to make your own (informed) decisions, regardless of societal or familial pressures.  As a parent and caregiver you are in a position to know and understand your child's (and your own!) personality, preferences, and abilities better than anyone else.  Raising a child is tough enough, just trying to keep the little things alive and healthy despite their best attempts to the contrary.  If you can learn to trust your own instincts for what is best for your baby, then you are well ahead of the curve.