The best toy ever!Recently, I was looking around at the hurricane of stuff my 11-month-old babies had scattered all over our den, and thought to myself, without a hint of irony, "Maybe they need more toys." Hear me out: They have links and books and balls that rattle, but I wondered if maybe they should have more stimulating, animated toys. They're at the age now where they're pulling levers and opening lids to elicit that high-pitched, battery-operated, "tee-hee" sound or carnival-style music. They'll push that big orange button like ten thousand times, bopping every time the creepy elf-like songs start. So are those blocks boring, old news to them now?
As it turns out, no, not at all. In a recent study, researchers determined that infants seek out information on their own, without the need for fancy toys or "educational" tools. If you give a baby an interesting environment to explore, they'll learn from that more than any toy.
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