The best toys for 4 to 7-month-old babies
What are the best toys for 4 to 7-month-old babies?
Children now actively engage with their environments and have learned to recognize you and familiar caregivers. They can track moving objects with smooth, efficient eye movements. Bright colors, high contrasts, and complex patterns continue to be appealing.
They have mastered the ability to grasp and manipulate a dangling object by 6 months, and begin to engage in more active play by reaching, grasping, tugging, pushing, patting, shaking, and squeezing objects.
At 6 to 7 months, children are sitting independently, which provides them with greater visual capacities for grasping objects or bringing objects to mid-line for exploration.
They also will learn how to use their voice and start to make babbling sounds like “ba ba ba,” “da da da,” or “ma ma ma”. You should talk to them and respond to the sounds they make. This way they will learn the social aspects of language and conversation.
Soft, lightweight, rounded, and textured toys that make gentle sounds are appropriate. Hand-held objects, like simple musical toys, should be sized so these children can easily grasp and manipulate them. Mirror is also appealing to them at this age.
Book: Now it’s the time
It is time to introduce books now. When you read to your kid, say the colors of the objects, the name of people and animals as you point to them. You can even make the sounds of the animals in the book. You should chose books that won’t rip and can withstand a little drooling and chewing
What to Avoid:
- By 5 months of age, children can roll onto their backs and push up onto their hands and knees, so mobiles and suspended crib gyms are no longer appropriate at this age.
- It’s important to make sure that any objects that could be choking hazards or dangerous to your baby in other ways – are out of reach, or even better, out of sight!
Do you have any suggestions for any types of books? or any and all will do. Great explanation of what babies at this age are doing and how they are maturing physically. Would you say all babies mature at the same pace or are some slower to adapting than others? Thanks for this.
Peter
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the positive feedback. I will soon upload some of the toys you can buy for kids at this age and there are some cool books as well.
Of course not, I started to eat stew when I was around 8 month old which is not normal Or my cousin she start talking when she was 11 month old. These psychological and physical review of child development is always about the average of a population. Of course some might be late in one concept and in front in another. But for this matter you better to discuss with a pediatricians to make sure everything is alright.
Cheers
Thank you for sharing your insight. I have a daughter who will turn 5 months in a week. I really think it is amazing to see the development every day. They start grasping at things without any control but after a few tries they manage already! My daughter loves staring in the mirror!
Hi Jan,
Thanks for the feedback and thanks for sharing your own experience with us. It is amazing watching them grow and learn things at the speed of light. She probably wants to grab the reflection time to time because she think it’s another baby.
Cheers
I really like your website, it is a very cool idea. I wish you would add a bit more in your content but at least what you have written is very good quality and very informative. Keep it up!
Hi Rashaad,
Thanks for your feedback. I will definitely add more content to my post by time.
Cheers
I’m always worrying about what toys will and won’t be good for the kids. I see so many young parents today plop their young child in front of a television.
Do you think this has any negative effects on the development at this age?
I notice all of your toy idea seem geared around wholesome development of the youngin. Thanks for your feedback.
Hi Joe,
First of all thanks for the positive feedback. In short answer TV is junk food for the brain. We know junk food is not good for our health but we like it, and we eat it. This is true for three years old and above.
But for bellow three years old, let me give you an example: “you are eating a paper of cheeseburger, and suddenly it disappear and on the other side of room another guy eats it” What?!!!
That’s how your child’s brain sees the TV program.
In the real world, your little ones see a ball moving from one side of a room to another side, it moves in the 3D world. Now consider in TV, a guy pass the ball in the 2D world, ball start to leave the guys hand and suddenly disappear (different shots in a movie) and appears in hands of another person. Their brain still doesn’t find a way to connect this information and make a continues story out of it.
Many studies suggest that watching TV before the age of 2 has adverse effects on your baby’s communication skills (language, reading), short-term memory, sleep, and attention.
I would make a post about this when I get to this range of age.
Thanks for asking this question because it’s critical for child development.
Cheers
I have seen looking at baby toys and baby cloths a lot lately and I can seem to decide. I don’t know what I’m having as I want it to be a surprise but I also am stuck not knowing which stuff to buy. I’m starting to think ill buy everything gray but its so depressing to think about a gray onesie.
Do you think gender matters with the toys like the clothes?
Hi Sarra,
Well, many things like a crib, bed, diapers, etc. can be unisex so just buy the one you like the most.
For cloth, I have a suggestion. Purchase number of cloth for both girl and boy within a month of your due date. This way you will keep the tags on and store the receipts in a safe place. Then you can return the ones you don’t need after the birth.
For toys, there are no issues. Childrene starts to establish their gender identity by the age of 2 and 3, and it matures by the age of 4 and 5. So you have plenty of time before he start to pick up the gender base toys.
They don’t care about what society think about toys. This is all in our head, and it’s pushed by society.
Hope this was helpful. Let me know if I can provide you with a better answer.
Cheers