Toy Thursday

We recently ordered and picked up from Treasure Island Toys Haba's Discovery Wagon
Christophe has been showing interest in walking for over a month now so we decided it was time to get him a push toy / wagon. Well its a hit, this is the toy that he wants to play with all the time. I hope this continues as it was not cheep (average cost $250), but so far it is worth it. He will also be able to grown with this toy as it should last till he is about 3 or 4 years old. So far I have to say both his balance and walking ability are improving fast and furious with the help of this wagon.

Toy Thursday

A few weeks back I picked these up for Christophe; Christophe loves rolling the balls around, he is still to little to play with the turtle bottom part. I love these kinds of toys that can grow with your baby. Geoff and I however think racing the turtle are fun all you have to do is put a bit pressure on the ball and it send the turtle rolling away. I can't wait till Christophe is older and we can have turtle races.I hope he lets me race the red one.

Toy Thursday - POST UPDATED TOY RECALLED

When you make the decision to only buy cloth or wood toys for your child there are a few items that are hard to find. One of them being a car; once Christophe gets older I will be able to find tones of wooden toy cars but there are not many made for babies. We successfully found 2, and Christophe especially likes the one from Plan Toys.

Baby Car by Plan Toys:

Speedy Baby Wooden Toy Clutching car by Haba: ***THIS TOY HAS BEEN RECALLED BY HABA FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT THE HABA USA WEBSITE***

The search for safer toys

Many of you know that we have made the decision to remove almost all plastics from our sons life. This includes toys. I have spent many hours on the internet researching wood toys and below is a list of the manufacturers I have found so far.

Melissa & Doug
Plan Toys
Haba
North Star Toys
Selecta Spieizeug
Grimm's
Heros
Jalu Wood Creations
Ringley
Holztiger

If anyone out there knows of others manufacturers please share.

Toy Spotting

I am always blogging about toys that I want here are few toys we already have that Christophe is loving.


Kringelring Wood Clutching Toy by Haba, this is probably one of his favorite things after his hands to shove in his mouth. Simple yet effective toy. I purchased this on at Treasure Island Toys at 581 Danforth Ave in Toronto.




Sophie the Giraffe by Vulli, many of you out there probably know this one or already may have one but I had to mention it because once again Christophe can't keep his little paws off this one or his mouth. Thank you grandmama (this one was a gift)

Play Place Review

After doing tons of research our not-so-expert minds decided that the 2 best Play Places out there for Christophe were the Dream Meadow by Haba or the Baby's Play Place by Bright Starts. We ended up selecting the Bright Starts one mostly due to cost and availability.

The reasons why we liked both of these were:
various configurations
grows with baby
can add your own toys
soft and comfy

Thank you tante Cathy for getting Christophe the Play Place. We use it every day for tummy time.

SAFETY

I was sick for a bit so that would explain my absence. Baby and me are both fine, so no worries. I decided to divide these entries by subjects as there is a lot to say.

TOY SAFETY:
The Canadian Goverment released this notice regarding toy safety that I tought would be good to share with everyone.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/advisories-avis/info-ind/toy_lead-jouets_plomb_e.html

Also for those of you that want to keep up to date with recalls in Canada there is a great newsletter from the Canadian government that you can subscribe to.  

On our part, a few of the things we are doing for baby to keep him safe from all the dangers of toxic chemicals out in the world are:

• Use only stainless steel, glass, silicon or wood for meals.  I.E. Glass bottles, silicon trays to freeze milk or homemade food, metal sippy cups,  wood cutlery (once he is there)... If you are wondering why we don't want to use plastic check out this information on Bisphenol A.  You can also check out this great article on what plastics are safe.
• Keeping up to date with recalls both in Canada and in the US.  The US often recalls things a few days before us.
• Choosing his toys wisely, this is probably the over cautious first time parent nerves kicking in but we are doing our best to select toys from manufacturers with none to minimum amounts of recalls.  We will always have few exceptions to this rule as I know we have at lest one Fisher Price toy and we all know they had there shares or recalls. Some of the toy manufacturers that we like are:

Manhattan Toy

Vulli

Kushies

Haba

Natural Pod

Melissa & Doug