By the time they’re in preschool your child will be able to create mesmerizingly complex storylines with other children. Though it may not look like the two are communicating, you will notice that your child slowly starts to play cooperatively, reacting to the other child and changing the game up. Though your toddler may generally play alone at 18 months, what’s called parallel play will start to happen more often: your toddler will play alongside another child with seemingly no crossover.
Their imaginations are active, and they really start to develop the knack of mimicking what you’re doing. Toys that are dedicated to helping them work on large muscle development are a great starting point.Īs toddlers become increasingly more independent, you can expect them to start playing on their own for a longer amount of time. Now that your toddler is running, hopping and trying to climb most of the things around them, they are becoming aware and testing out their bodies’ strength. One thing for sure: your 18- to 24-month-old rarely sits still. “My boy is obsessed with a couple of board books (Newtonian Physics for Babies & Chicka Chicka Boom Boom) and his Little Tikes Cozy Coupe car.” “The Little Tikes Cozy Coupe cars go super fast and I finally got one!” This toy is a beast to store you’d better have a garage or basement to do it in. This enduring toy also has an ignition that clicks, extra storage space for toys or snacks, and a gas cap that opens and closes for mesmerizingly realistic play. This 30th anniversary edition has a special feature: removable floorboards that allow your child to push the car along to her heart's content, then pop back in so parents can push her home from the park when she's tired. The Cozy Coupe, a classic ride-on toy for generations, lets kids take their imagination on the go, and a foot-powered vehicle strengthens growing legs while inspiring any number of pretend games. Meanwhile, if you want to look ahead to where your baby’s going, try our list of the best toys for 2-year-olds. Keep reading to find the best ride-on toy for 18-month-olds, the best educational toy for 20-month-olds, and more. Once we found toys that Bab圜enter parents love, we handed the list off to our expert editors for vetting and research, making sure that the toys we chose meet criteria from health- and development-oriented official organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as well as experts like Courtney Hill.įrom toys that mimic real-life grown-up rituals, chores, and activities to music toys to active toys to books and art supplies, here are some of the best toys for kids aged 18 to 24 months. So we started our search in Bab圜enter’s Community, searching through thousands of posts to find the toys that parents recommend to other toddler parents. With thousands of toys on the market, pulling together a brief list of the best isn’t easy. How we chose the best toys for 18- to 24-month-olds “Any logic toys that not only promote problem solving but also independent play, where they can explore on their own, are great toys for this age.” Building blocks and puzzles are classic choices, Hill says. With all this new cognitive complexity, Hill says that the toys toddlers appreciate are newly complex as well. Your toddler will likely know their own name and will begin to understand simple sentences or instructions you give them.
They will begin to name familiar objects, body parts or mimic animal sounds. Newly mobile, incredibly inquisitive, and increasingly independent, your toddler lives in a magical world where reality and fantasy intermingle, and pretend play takes on a new luster.Ĭourtney Hill, school psychologist, Ed.S., and NCSP (Nationally Certified School Psychologist) says this is a golden age for toys that mimic real life: “Whether that’s a play kitchen, store or or even a vacuum, a toddler might easily pretend they are you."Īt the same time, your child’s vocabulary is increasing quickly, and they become more interested in shapes, colors, and numbers. Your 18- to 24-month-old baby is an amazing creature.