Best Newborn Toys: A Hello Charlie Toy Guide

While a newborn's life is primarily about feeding, sleeping, and cuddling for the first few months, it's also a time of rapid brain development. As your baby hears, touches, and explores the world around them, their senses are actively shaping their understanding. Playtime, an integral part of your baby's development, is a joyous journey of discovery for both you and your little one. Many wonderful developmental toys for babies are designed to aid this exploration and learning.

This guide is designed to assist you in selecting the best baby toy for your newborn, ensuring that you can support their growth and development effectively. It also provides guidance on how to use these toys to help them learn through play. As a bonus, all the toys recommended in this guide are eco-friendly, non-toxic, and safe for babies.

Best Toys for Newborn Babies

Hello Charlie offers a wide range of organic baby toys, eco-friendly toys, and toys that make the best gifts for newborns. This ensures that you can find the perfect fit for your baby, regardless of their preferences or needs.

Newborn Development Milestones

Keep in mind that your baby is unique and may reach developmental milestones at their own pace. As a parent, it's important to understand and support your baby's individual journey. By six months, your baby will likely smile more, confidently hold their head up, babble, roll over, and grab toys.

Try introducing developmental toys for newborns that help build fine motor skills, like baby rattles. Other newborn toys for babies that your little one can hold and chew on safely, like teether toys, are also a great choice. It's crucial to opt for non-toxic, eco-friendly toys that your baby can safely put in their mouth. This not only ensures your baby's safety but also reflects your care and responsibility as a parent.

The best sustainable and soothing toys for babies under six months aid in developing their fine motor skills, encourage exploration of the world around them and are non-toxic and safe for your baby to chew on.

Vision

Newborn babies learn by observing their surroundings and reacting to movement, an essential part of their daily life at this stage of development. Until about three months old, newborns can only see muted colours, so the best toys for newborn babies are black and white toys that are bright and highly contrasted. High contrast baby books and sensory toys for babies are a great choice. These toys for 0-3 months old will help them explore their senses and keep them engaged.

Toy Recommendations

Mesmerised Books for Newborns

Choose toys like high contrast books for babies from Mesmerised that will keep your newborn captivated. Black and white baby toys give your baby something to focus their vision on, helping spark their curiosity from an early age.

Plan Toys Penguin

Bring a touch of whimsy to playtime with the Plan Toys Penguin, a delightful toy crafted from sustainable materials. Its smooth, rounded design is perfect for little hands, encouraging imaginative play while stimulating their visual development. This charming penguin not only entertains but also helps nurture a greener planet.

Manhattan Toy Company Infant Stim Mobile

Elevate your baby’s sensory experience with the Infant Stim Mobile from Manhattan Toy Company. Made from safe, eco-friendly materials, this mobile features bright colours and different textures that captivate and comfort your little one, making it an excellent addition to any nursery.

Auditory Skills

Newborn babies react to loud sounds and can recognise your voice. Therefore, the best toys for baby development and auditory skills are those that make fun sounds and encourage sing-alongs. Babies can distinguish tempo and rhythm changes and enjoy listening to songs. They start paying attention to soft music, recognising infant toys that make sounds, and reacting to simple noises like whistles and beeps, as well as complex sounds like music and speech.

Introducing sound-making toys that stimulate your baby's senses is essential. Rattles that your baby can shake, simple musical toys, or even textured toys that create exciting sounds as your baby touches them are not just fun, but also the best baby toys for newborns to develop auditory skill

Toy Recommendations

Tikiri My First Zoo Rubber Teether & Rattle

Made from pure natural rubber, Tikiri's cute eco toy produces a lovely rattle sound when shaken. Baby rattles are perfect sound making toys that help develop auditory and fine motor skills. 

Hess Spielzeug Motor Ball Rattle 

Made from sustainable beech wood and non toxic paints, Hess Spielzeug's sensory toy is excellent for auditory stimulation and helps develop fine motor skills.

Plan Toys Shake N Clap Wooden Baby Rattle

Plan Toy's classic wooden rattle is timeless for parents seeking sustainable and engaging toys. It's made from responsibly sourced wood and offers a gentle rattle sound that encourages interactive play. As your baby shakes and claps the rattle, they develop essential motor skills and sensory awareness.

Communication and Language

From the very first coos and gurgles, newborns are already exploring the world of sound. By four months, their babbling becomes more expressive, a sign they're starting to understand and mimic the sounds around them. At this newborn stage, your baby responds to what they hear and uses different cries to communicate hunger, pain, or discomfort.

Engage with your baby through pretend play by having 'conversations' and reading stories, as this helps encourage language development. Use baby books to introduce new words and ideas. When your little one points to an object, talk about it with clear, slow words. This deliberate speech pattern helps them connect sounds with meaning, aiding their language acquisition.

The best newborn and educational toys for babies spark meaningful interactions between parents and their little ones. These toys help capture a baby's focus and encourage communication, creating special moments that foster early development and bonding.

Toy Recommendations

Fabelab Fabric Baby Book - My Little Farm

Explore a world of farmyard fun with Fabelab's soft, interactive fabric baby book made from organic cotton. It's not just a book; it's a sensory journey that sparks curiosity while being gentle with your little one and the planet.

Wee Gallery Flippy Friends - Cat (Spanish)

Introduce your baby to the joys of bilingual play with this adorable Wee Gallery toy featuring simple Spanish words. This 2-in-1 comforter and flip book, crafted from sustainable materials, makes learning a delightful and eco-friendly experience and enhances your baby's cognitive development.

Fabelab Fabric Baby Activity Cube - Little Butterfly

Keep tiny hands and minds engaged with Fabelab's charming activity cube, designed to stimulate your baby's senses with its soft textures and playful features. Made from organic cotton, it's a sustainable choice that supports your baby's development while caring for the Earth.

Cause and Effect Learning

Understanding cause and effect is a crucial milestone in a baby's development, and it's not just a theoretical concept. It becomes more apparent towards the end of their first year. Infants start exploring their world between two and six months through their senses and actions. They're fascinated by how their movements influence their surroundings, such as batting at a dangling toy and noticing it moves. However, at this stage, their understanding is more about sensory exploration than a deliberate cause-and-effect relationship. Their responses are primarily reflexive and curious rather than intentional.

Simple toys that encourage experimentation are ideal to nurture a baby's developing cognitive skills. For instance, a baby rattle toy or a newborn teether allows infants to drop these objects and observe the results. These are the best development toys for introducing basic cause-and-effect concepts.

Toy Recommendations

Tikiri Elephant Vibrating Toy with Rubber Teether

This adorable Tikiri elephant doesn't just soothe teething gums with its natural rubber teether; it also delights your baby with gentle vibrations when the tail is pulled, sparking curiosity and teaching cause and effect. Made with GOTS-certified organic cotton, it's a sustainable choice that nurtures fine motor skills and your little one's love for learning.

Fabelab Activity Blanket - Planetary

Transform playtime into a space adventure with the Fabelab Planetary Activity Blanket, where little hands can explore crinkly planets, tactile textures, and engaging details. Crafted from organic cotton, this blanket stimulates sensory development and reflects a commitment to sustainability.

Apple Park Teething Baby Rattles - Cloud Tree

Soothe your baby's teething woes while captivating them with the soft jingle of the Apple Park Cloud Tree Rattle, perfect for little hands to grasp and shake. Made from organic cotton and eco-friendly materials, this gentle rattle doubles as a safe teether, offering peace of mind and playful comfort.

Motor Skills

Around two months old, babies begin to hold their heads and push up while lying on their tummies. You'll notice smoother arm and leg movements as your little one starts exploring their growing strength. They'll also be fascinated by their hands, bringing them to their mouths, reaching for objects, and shaking them. This is the perfect time to introduce gross and fine motor skills toys that encourage exploration.

By four months, your baby will reach and grasp more intentionally, making this an excellent stage to offer toys that encourage movement and exploration. Baby gym toys, baby mobile toys, balls for infants, baby hanging toys and tummy time toys are not just playthings; they can empower you to support your baby's motor skill development during their first six months. Swatting, grabbing, hitting, and batting help build hand-eye coordination and strengthen gross motor skills.

Toy Recommendations

Plan Toys Play Gym

Let your little one explore with Plan Toy's sustainable rubberwood gym. This engaging play gym promotes active play and curiosity. It features hanging toys that encourage grabbing and reaching, helping to develop your child's fine motor and hand eye coordination skills.

Le Toy Van Petilou Teething Beads

Le Toy Van's versatile teething beads offer soothing relief while stimulating your baby's motor skills. The durable, elastic cord allows little hands to move the beads around, enhancing dexterity and keeping your baby entertained.

Fabelab Soft Baby Blocks - Farm Animals

Learning meets playtime with Fabelab's plush farm blocks. Made from organic cotton, they're soft on sensitive skin and perfect for little hands to stack, grasp, and explore, sparking imagination.  

Social and Emotional Development

A baby's first social smile is an important emotional and social development milestone. As early as two months old, infants start expressing a range of emotions through different facial expressions and learn to self-soothe, often by sucking on their hands. They learn to smile in response to parents and other people smiling at them, which helps build a strong social bond through these early interactions.

Soft toys that encourage skin-to-skin contact between baby and caregiver are essential to foster a sense of security and comfort during this crucial period. Developmental toys, especially newborn soft toys, can also play a vital role in stimulating a baby's senses and promoting healthy growth.

Toy Recommendations

Apple Park Organic Blankie Lamby

Snuggle up with the Apple Park Organic Blankie Lamby, crafted from certified organic cotton that's as gentle on the planet as it is on your little one. This soft and cosy companion will quickly become your newborn's favourite cuddle buddy, giving them comfort and security.

Tikiri Organic Koala Plush Toy

Tikiri's Organic Koala Plush Toy, made from organic cotton, is the perfect friend for your baby, nurturing early emotional bonds while being kind to the environment. With its soft and huggable design, it's sure to be a comforting presence during playtime and naps.

Apple Park Friends Organic Soft Doll

Meet your child's first best friend! The Apple Park Friends Organic Soft Doll is made from 100% organic cotton, ensuring a safe, eco-friendly companion that inspires imagination and nurtures social skills through play.

Things To Do and Games To Play With Your Newborn

While your newborn may seem tiny and quiet, these early months are packed with incredible learning and development. Play is how your little one explores their senses, builds connections with you, and starts understanding the world around them.

This doesn't require fancy toys or complicated routines. Some of the best playtime moments are the most simple. Let's dive into some playful activities you can do with your newborn, from silly faces during nappy changes to tummy time adventures and the magic of early books and tactile toys.

• Engage in simple activities such as singing, counting toes, and blowing raspberries with your baby.
• Use nappy changing time to interact face to face, make faces, smile, and laugh to engage your baby.
• Give your newborn different developmental baby toys or objects to see, hear and feel.
• Ensure your newborn has supervised tummy time each day for active play.
• Talk to your baby and make sounds to encourage responses and promote emotional bonding.
• Introduce developmental toys for infants, like books, as early as possible. Remember to hold the book closer to their face because newborns can only see objects at a close distance.

Nurture Your Newborn's Growth with the Best Eco-Friendly Toys

During the first six months of your baby's life, they will reach significant developmental milestones. To maximise their learning and development, it's important to introduce them to the best toys for babies under six months. If you're looking for safe, organic toys for young babies, you will find the perfect gifts for newborns or three-month-old baby toys at Hello Charlie. You can buy baby toys here.