Wednesday 25 July 2007

Recommended Age (?????)

Baby toys is a quite the - well for want of a better thing to say - industry!!!

There are a number of brands that have many ranges of toys for all ages of babies, infants and children and keeping track is a bit of a task. Plus if one was to follow the age recommendations to the tee then i feel twice as many toys would be purchased than necessary, but i think that might be what they want!

Peanut had many toys in the age range 'birth' or '0+' bought for him when he was born, meaning that were considered safe for a newborn baby to play with. But when babies are newborn, they don't tend to play! they don't tend to much more than eat and sleep!!!

There are a few brands of toys that have different sets of toys for different 'stages'. 0 - 3 months, 3 - 6 months and so on. The funny thing is, is that by the time Peanut was starting to show real interest in the 0 - 3 month toys, he was nearly 3 months and theoretically should have been moving on the next 'stage' by then.

He is nearly 6 months and is still enjoying playing with the same toys the 0 - 3. Does this mean he is behind? Is playing with for want of something else play with?Or do the toy companies put out these many toys of many stages to make us buy more of them! One of the silliest things about the 0 - 3 toys is they have specially designed textures and made of specific materials to help with teething, when most babies get to at least 6 month if not older before they get teeth. Now for those of you who don't know, Peanut has actually gotten his first teeth already - but then he is quite advanced.

Wait a minute i have just contradicted myself there *shrug*

These days any toys with eyes, plastic ones, are considered not safe for children under the age of 3 years. Mostly because the eyes can be removed and swallowed by the child, so all soft toys for children under the age of 3 tend to have eyes that are embroidered onto the face.

Today while in a popular toy shop i saw a very cute blue teddy bear (there was also a pink one for girls) with "Happy 1st Birthday" printed on it.


Please excuse the quality of these photos, they were taken on my mobile phone. Plus i had Peanut in the BTD and he was trying to grab the bear off me. The first photo is not bad, but the second here is quite the bit blurry (:

So anyway the bear is being sold as a bear for a 1st birthday, but on the tag attached to it, it say it is not suitable for children under the age of 3!!!!! With bold print saying WARNING - CAUTION


So if toy manufacturing company can't decide their target age range, what hope do the rest of us have!

(: Reggie

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