The complete guide to toys & play, ages 0–6
What to look for at every stage, grounded in guidance from the AAP, the CDC, Harvard's Center on the Developing Child, and the CPSC.
Playloop team
Every parent has stood in front of a shelf — or a search bar — wondering whether a toy is actually worth buying, or worth keeping. This free guide answers that age by age, using guidance from the organisations that study child development for a living rather than the marketing copy on the box.
What's inside
- Age-by-age sections from birth to six: what's developing, what play supports it, and which toy categories fit
- CDC milestones for each stage, so you know what you're actually looking at
- A safety note per age bracket, including the small-parts rules for under-3s
- A checklist for secondhand and swapped toys
- A one-page quick-reference table of toys by age
- Full sources, so you can read the original guidance yourself
One idea holds the whole thing together: the goal is never to own the most toys, or the newest ones — it's to have the right kind of play available at the right stage. That's exactly why swapping works so well. A toy that's done its job for one child is often exactly what another child needs right now.
It's free. If you find it useful, pass it on to another parent.
Get the guide
A free PDF — save it, print it, pass it along to another parent.
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