The birth of a child in the house is celebrated with a lot of cheer, enthusiasm and excitement. However, it also comes with deciphering and uncovering a lot of things that are new to a parent. Every child is unique and itu2019s left upto the parent to decipher and be able to understand what suits their child the best!u00a0
While buying new products for a newborn a parent naturally is bound to be cautious as they want to ensure the safety of the child. And this caution extends to even toys for newborns.u00a0
A lot of parents very naturally would take extra caution while buying a toy for a newborn child or even gifting a toy to a newborn.u00a0
This is for obvious reasons to ensure safety of the child – particularly since newborns have a natural instinct to put everything they can hold in their mouths thereby increasing the risk for an unsolicited infection arising from these products. Sterilizing these products is not always possible and one cannot be sure of any untested allergies that a newborn could have. This makes it tougher to choose the right product for a newborn.
We have some pointers that one can consider while purchasing toys:
- While purchasing online for newborn toys, make sure you are double checking for the materials used. We recommend you purchase toys that are wooden – since plastic toys, even the BPA free ones go through a chemically laden process and are made from artificial materials that are factory produced. On the other hand, wooden toys are made from wood which is naturally available.
- Examine the wood that the toys are made from. Its recommended to purchase teething toys particularly teethers made of seasoned neem wood over any other wood due to the nativeness of neem. Well, there definitely was a reason our forefathers considered neem twigs for their brushing and dental hygiene. Neem has a lot of antifungal and antibacterial properties offering much sturdiness to the teething products while also reducing the itchiness of the gums while teething.
- We recommend buying wooden toys made from seasoned wood with no coating / wax on them and preferably without any color. While these may not look as appealing as the plastic toys with multiple colors, one must understand that for newborns – the toys that are safe and enhance their sensory stimulation are more important than their visual appeal or feel.
- While purchasing newborn toys with colors on them, please do check for the origin of these colors. We recommend purchasing toys with non-toxic paints or painted with naturally available colors obtained from vegetable dyes or water-based paints. The reason this becomes important is in order to avoid contact with the solvent used in paints.Chemical/hydrocarbon solvents which are not meant for paint on a toy have a pungent smell and are certainly not safe for a newborn to be put in their mouth.
- Rounded edges: Since a newborn is just learning about grasping a toy, its natural for the toy to fall on their face or on the floor while playing. Itu2019s recommended to ensure the edges are well-rounded and smooth with no sharp edges at all in order to ensure no hurt/harm caused to the child during play. Its also recommended for the toy to be lightweight and made of softer wood so that itsu2019 easier to grasp and is light on the childu2019s hands.
- Stimulation it offers to a child: Newborns’ senses are rapidly developing – whether it is the sense of touch, sight, auditory or even physical movement. It is recommended to offer them toys that help enhance their sensory development in different ways. A newborn can only see highly contrasting colors from 2 month to about 8 months – and offering them flash cards with contrasting colors beginning with simple black and while before proceeding to other vibrant colors is a great way to develop their sense of sight. Similarly rattles that make a soothing sound, ideally different kind of rattles with a feel to them are also great. Ideally rattles can range from a rolling drum rattle to a neem rattle, a crochet rattle – since all of them offer different sensory exploration for the child. While choosing a rattle one must remember it also does double up as a teething toy and hence ensuring the rattle is also safe as a teething toy becomes important.u00a0
