Overstimulating toys?

I read somewhere that babies/kids do like bright toys - I prefer the look of wooden toys etc as well but I think the bright colours are meant to be good for their brain development (or so I’ve heard).

Not sure about the flashing and loud sounds etc. though..I haven’t heard much about the benefits or cons of those sorts of toys over other toys.

Baby Einstein toys are amazing! As they get older you can pick up some really nice wooden & plastic ones.. we recently got the guitar and keyboard set for my 18 month old.. we have the under the sea play gym with lights and noise for my 8 week old too.. I think it’s actually a very modern and fashion look all the wooden toys (my opinion) but the bright colour and noisy ones will end up being kids favourites as they engage with them more x

I felt exactly the same when my son was a baby. He was generally quite happy figuring out more tactile montessori style wooden toys and didn't need the over stimulation of things that flash and play annoying music. It is hard to avoid them though when people would constantly pass things on or once I returned to work and was relying on others for childcare. In the end I found it doesn't hurt to have a little bit of the overstumulation if you stick to your preferences the majority of the time. My son is 2 now and has a great attention span, very resilient and loves problem solving and I do believe we helped to develop this from a very early age with the toys he had and the way we interacted with them. It's all important.

You gotta take care of you too. I personally cannot stand things with annoying sounds and bright flashing lights, etc. I don’t think it’s helpful to babies either as it’s pure stimulation overload imo. I love fun colorful baby toys, but they don’t need to be obnoxious to be beneficial. I’d get rid of it after they left if it were me lol 😂

My in laws are the same with the horrible toys. I find them reallly annoying and unnecessary as that age babies just like to play with people. If I were you I would put it in a cupboard and get it out when they visit. They can be useful when your daughter is older and you want her to be distracted while you get something done.

that makes me feel better!!

omg I have to check out the guitar one. That’s good to know!!

I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one! I like your approach, a little bit of flash won’t hurt 🙂‍↔️

omgggg me neither. It’s very possible that IM the overstimulated one and baby is just grooving but if it makes its way into the donate pile she won’t tell 😂

I do understand the mind numbing noisy light up crap though… my in laws bought this airplane thing that did my absolute head in…
Batteries came out of that one quick.. but a few ‘better quality’ ones won’t hurt :)

haha! I won’t be surprised if the dreaded airplane will find itself into my house via the in-laws! I’ll do some digging and look into the better ones though. TBH she did seem pretty intrigued so I might as well find the happy medium

They need the lights and noises for their brains to develop ☺️

I promise it’s not just an obnoxious aesthetic, loud colors and noises can be very overstimulating especially for infant and toddlers, kids in general! Kids are more calmer & thrive better in mute/neutral color environments. As someone who also gets overwhelmed with bold colors & repetitive noises I completely understand. And as a daycare teacher, my infants prefer muter/neutral colors also and get very overstimulated with those kind of toys, they prefer playing with a black ipad case with no noises instead 😂.

As a second time mum they always prefer the tacky toys! Ofc the wooden ones look nicer! I have some pretty wooden ones on display then the tacky stuff in boxes. But as her mum its fine to communicate what kind of toys you want your child to grow up with!

We had a no battery rule for our eldest and managed it for years!

lol thank you for validating my mom vibe 🥰 yeah I feel like she can have as much if not more fun with a sock at this point, so idk! It’s nice to hear an educators perspective!

lol wait that’s genius! A no battery rule is fool proof!

I have a feeling that resisting the tacky toys is a losing battle but I’ll keep fighting! Lol

these are actually so great!! You’re right, it’s a nice blend of the colorful exciting toy with a less stimulating feel. Thank you so so much! I’m going to definitely grab these. My husband is a musician and he’s gonna dig this so much

tbf my daughter is 3 now so i have found as she’s got older she gravitates to colour and theres just more choice in plastic stuff! As a baby you can definitely get away with what you want more. I buy and sell a lot of my toys to avoid too much plastic guilt

I think I would see that toy like I see the jumperoo... God I'd love to bin the massive creature that is hogging my lounge but she loves it and it gives me 10 minutes while she plays independently, it comes in the kitchen for cooking too... one step closer to the bin ;) haha x

It depends on what your baby is ready for. My daughter was a preemie, she has the Nemo playing gym and she loves the lights and the music - she's showing excellent signs of development. On the other hand, my nephew disliked all of this and we know it's not for him.

Baby einstein is great, my baby loves it and it gives me 5-10mins to be able to do something. I think the wooden toys are great for when they're older and can actually play but my 3m old loves his bright tacky gym and its definitely helped his strength so who cares.
I do think the whole wooden toy thing is just a recent fad and they have there place but babies will.always love the bright loud things.

My baby loved some of the bright coloured and noisy toys and ignored the others. One she didn’t like but after a few months she does. Maybe put it out of rotation until baby is older

My son is older (18 months ) but we rotate toys like that so he only has access to 1-2 at a time for our sanity. We also pack some away and he gets them only on long car rides and that’s been super helpful for keeping him happy and content in the car!

I got a few of those and either have them away, didn’t keep batteries in them, or put them away for ‘later’ (aka never).

Most of our toys are educational based, wooden, and good quality. I don’t mind some bright and loud ones but they don’t stay out all the time, never are brought into the bedroom, and it will ‘break’ aka I will take the batteries out but allow the toy to stay if it starts to annoy me.

they also do a drum kit! All 3 of them connect together so you can play together :)

Colors are great for development but probably not all of the time. Even with our toddler, when I buy toys, it’s usually wood or something he can play with in different ways. Anything with batteries, loud noises, lots of buttons and flashing lights is pretty overstimulating. I find myself donating toys every month just to keep it down to only a few so he’s more likely to play and stick to one toy. Our rule of thumb is if the toy overstimulates us, it probably overstimulates our child 🤷🏼‍♀️ it’s all up to you! Wooden toys have been around way longer than all the plastic (which is a whole other issue in itself)

Our baby has zero bright lights and loud toys and zero screen time. When we were given them, we gave them away. 🙈🙈 I’ve made it very clear to friends and relatives that those toys aren’t ok until he’s at least two. Even then, we’re not going to accept a barrage of toys like that.

We don’t have an aesthetic for his toys lol, and we have some pretty ugly, tacky toys in the mix — he goes for ALL of them!

You’ll need to clean plastic toys more often, and especially if baby gets sick, because germs are fond of plastic and thrive on it vs. wood.

When they are younger (infants) toys like that is great for brain development but as they get older (toddlers) to can transition to wooden toys which will increase there imagination and creativity

I was the opposite and then I saw how much the loud electronic plastic toys scared my baby so don't use them. Unwanted toys go in the bottom of the box to be left alone!
I love colours though and we have some great plastic rattles (a fish with shapes), stacking cups, I love the sensory tissue box which has see through breathable mesh squares and some rustling paper squares. 6 mo loves to pull out the papers and play. Keeps him away from the real kleenex box! The books with mirrors, rustly crunchy bits, felt flaps and fluffy feely bits are great too.
We use one vtech bunny but the light is very subtle and you can turn sound off or just on sleep mode which plays gentle lullabies. It has a comfort blanket with different textures, muted colours and silicone teething tabs