Why I Rethought Educational Toys for My 19-Month-Old (and What We Use Now)
The bin was overflowing. Bright plastic rattles, a stuffed elephant that played lullabies, a wooden hammer set, a shape sorter with missing pieces, and at least three toys that all did the same thing: light up, make noise, and then get ignored within minutes. My 19-month-old, Leo, was sitting in the middle of it, pulling everything out one item at a time and tossing each behind him without looking. He wasn’t playing. He was excavating.
I’d been so careful, too. I read the lists, looked for “age-appropriate” labels, and bought things with all the educational buzzwords stamped on the box. But the more stuff we had, the less he seemed to do with any of it. So I started paying attention to the moments when he actually got lost in something. It wasn’t with the bin. It was with a cardboard box from a delivery. It was with my measuring cups and the lid of a pot. And it was with the same worn board book about a tractor, read eleven times in a row.
That’s when I realized the issue wasn’t that Leo needed more educational toys. It was that he needed me to make fewer things available, and make the right things easier for him to reach and use on his own.
At 19 or 20 months, a lot is shifting. Leo is talking more, sometimes surprising me with a word I didn’t know he knew. He’s also incredibly mobile and wants to do things himself—putting his shoes on the wrong feet, trying to zip his own jacket, insisting on pouring water from a cup that is definitely too heavy. This is the age of “me do it,” even when he can’t quite do it yet. Toys that let him practice that urge are the ones that hold his attention. Toys that do too much for him just make him watch and then move on.
The first thing I changed was the storage. I took the big bin out of the living room and put it in the closet. In its place, I set up a low, shallow shelf—the kind that’s more like a wooden tray with sides—and put only five things on it: a small shape sorter, a set of stacking cups, a board book with real photos of animals, a chunky wooden puzzle with a knob on each piece, and a little fabric bag full of colorful scarves. That was it. At first I felt like I was being cheap or lazy. But Leo started actually sitting down at the shelf and choosing something instead of just dumping everything into a pile.
The stacking cups are the best example of how this works. They aren’t marketed as much, and they cost almost nothing. But they’re brilliant because they do about ten different things depending on Leo’s mood. Some days he stacks them and knocks them down. Other days he puts them inside each other, line by line. Other days he carries them to the kitchen and uses them as cups for his imaginary tea party. There’s no wrong way to play with them. That’s what keeps him engaged.
I also stopped correcting him when he played with things “wrong.” The shape sorter, for example, was originally a frustration point. He would try to force the triangle into the square hole, get upset, and push the whole thing away. I had the urge to guide his hand, show him the right way, explain that the triangle doesn’t fit there. But for a kid his age, figuring out what doesn’t fit is the actual learning. So I changed what I said. Instead of “No, that goes here,” I started saying, “You’re trying hard. That one didn’t fit. What else can you try?” And I let him struggle for a few seconds before helping. More often than not, he eventually found the right spot on his own, and the satisfaction on his face was different from when I just solved it for him.
Another shift: I learned to see everyday objects as educational resources. Leo’s favorite “toy” right now is a small basket I keep in the kitchen with a few spoons, a whisk, a silicone spatula, and some empty spice jars with the lids glued on. He drags it into the living room and spends fifteen minutes taking everything out, putting the lids on and off, tapping the whisk against the floor, and pretending to cook in his little play kitchen. It’s not a toy, but it’s better than many toys because it’s real. Real objects have weight and texture and purpose. They give him a way to imitate what he sees me doing all day, which is exactly what he’s wired to do right now.
I’ve also been more careful about what I don’t offer. I pulled out the electronic talking toys, not because they’re evil, but because they tend to make Leo passive. He presses a button and the toy does a song or says a phrase, and he just watches. Then he presses it again, and watches again. It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t ask anything of him. So now those toys live in the closet too, and we bring one out only when I need to make lunch and want a fifteen-minute break. I don’t pretend it’s educational. It’s just a babysitter, and that’s okay sometimes.
Books have become the biggest part of our routine. Leo doesn’t have a long attention span, but he does love books with photographs of real things—trucks, animals, kids eating food, faces with different expressions. We read the same ones over and over, and I used to try to rush through them. Now I let him set the pace. He’ll point to a picture of a dog and say “oof” and I’ll say, “Yes, that’s a dog. What sound does a dog make?” We do this for every animal. He turns the pages himself, sometimes skipping two at a time, and that’s fine. I’m not trying to finish a story. I’m trying to help him connect words to the world.
One of the most useful things I’ve done is rotate the shelf every week or so. I don’t buy new toys often. I just swap what’s out with a few things from the closet. When a toy comes back after a month away, Leo looks at it like it’s brand new. This cut down on our clutter and stopped the cycle of him getting bored after five minutes. Now I can see what he’s actually interested in by noticing which toy he goes back to over and over. Right now it’s a wooden train with three interchangeable carriages. His interest in that tells me he’s into the idea of making things go, which means I might set up a ramp next week using a flattened cardboard box and some blocks.
I’m not saying any of this is a foolproof system. There are still afternoons when Leo ignores the shelf and tries to climb the kitchen chairs, or pulls all the books off the shelf just for fun. I sometimes catch myself reaching for my phone and realize he’s been quietly playing alone for almost twenty minutes, which is both a relief and a strange reminder that he doesn’t need me to entertain him constantly. He just needs a safe, simple environment where he can make his own choices. The hard part is staying out of his way long enough for that to happen.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why I Rethought Educational Toys for My 19-Month-Old (and What We Use Now)