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Baby Toys — Avoiding Overpriced Toys

January 28th, 2010
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Baby Toys - Avoiding Overpriced Toys

My daugh­ter Vanessa is now six years of age and she still plays with the baby toys she was given when she was much younger. My wife and I have large bas­kets to store all of her toys in and because she has so many toys, we keep most of them in the base­ment and rein­tro­duce them to her every once in a while so she doesn’t get bored by hav­ing too many of them all at once.

One of my daugh­ters favorite things to do, is to go to the dollar store in our neigh­bour­hood and look for toys there. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on baby toys because gen­er­ally babies can get bored with them very quickly, so we don’t go to stores like Toys R Us or what we like to refer to them as Toys R Over­priced because quite frankly we do find them over­priced and avoid those kinds of stores. For just a dol­lar or two you can buy a baby toy and your child can play with it as long as they would with a ten dol­lar toy. There are even edu­ca­tional toys at the lower prices stores as well.

Another great place to find baby toys are gen­tly used or sec­ond hand stores where the baby toys have been dis­en­fected for clean­li­ness and are in great con­di­tion for babies to play with. You can find some great deals at these types of stores when you are look­ing for edu­ca­tional baby toys, baby clothes, mater­nity clothes, fur­ni­ture or baby strollers as well.

One thing I have started doing recently is trad­ing toys with friends who have kids. We will lend each other toys that our own kids are not play­ing with any­more and we find that it works extremely well instead of buy­ing new toys all the time for our daughter.

Watch the video related to baby toys

Natalie Morales and the best toys for babies and toddlers.

Help answer the ques­tion about baby toys

How to get the chem­i­cal smell out of baby toys?
I just bought my baby a new rat­tle by Fisher Price. It was inside pack­ag­ing when I bought it so I didn’t real­ize until I got it home that it smelled hor­ri­ble like chem­i­cals. The instruc­tions on it said to wash before use in warm soapy water. Which I did and do with all of her new toys, but it didn’t take the awful smell away, I don’t want her to put it in her mouth that way. How do I get the smell out? I tried soapy water and bak­ing soda. What else should I try?

About Author

Brian kearns offers help­ful bar­gain dis­count shop­ping tips and bar­gain dis­count online shop­ping infor­ma­tion to help peo­ple make valu­able money sav­ing deci­sions about pur­chases they make online and offline at http://www.bargainshoppingtips.com

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  1. Theodore Satou Jan 28th, 2010 @ 06:47 | #1
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    So you put some­thing in its mouth, it suck it, then it cries?

  2. Dogma (puppy due July 25th) Jan 28th, 2010 @ 06:56 | #2
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    My dog has “HIS” toybox

    My Baby has “HER” toybox

    Toys are kept separate.

    Baby is only allowed to play with her toys.. if she has a dog toy, I remove it from her and give her one of HER toys

    Dog is only allowed to play with his toys.. if he has a baby toy, I remove it and give him one of HIS toys.

    Even­tu­ally the toys will have their indi­vid­ual scent and your dog should be able to rec­og­nize which are his and which belong to the baby.

    Baby toys are also put away when she’s done play­ing.. they are not left lay­ing any­where. Most of her toys are kept in the liv­ing room, which is baby gated off– the dog has lim­ited access to that room.

    The best solu­tion is to just super­vise, and make sure that baby toys are put away when the baby is not play­ing with them. Your child can learn at a young age to keep her toys picked up, or they may become chewed up.

  3. beg82920 Jan 28th, 2010 @ 06:58 | #3
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    !!!! WAIT !!!!! ANSWER #1 IS 100% INCORRECT !!!

    He states

    “Stick with wooden or cloth/plush toys for a baby — that’s one option. ”

    The wooden toys from China are the ones that are painted and have the biggest chance of hav­ing lead based paint (LBP). Cloth/plush items will (can) col­lect lead dust from floors. And then pass it to the kids if they are not cleaned / washed often.

    There was a web site for recalled toys but I can’t find it right now. But even this site may not list all the toys effected with lead. Its a good start but I would test each wooden OR PLASTIC toy I bought. There can be lead in plas­tic or vinyl.

    edit: found the web site… http://www.babycenter.com

    The eas­i­est way to test is with a prod­uct call “Lead Check”. They are small white tubes that deliver a chem­i­cal (sodium rodiz­inate) to the sur­face. If there is leach-able lead it will turn color (pink or red). Call around to your local paint stores to find them. There are many types of these chem­i­cal test kits but my opin­ion is Lead Check is the best / easiest.

    HINT: They cost about $3.00 each BUT !!! (Lead Check hates me to teach this) … There are 5 to 7 drops in each tube. If you use a clean dry cot­ton swab on each item, you can get 5 to 7 tests.

    (no I don’t work for or own stock in this co.) … :)

    For more info plese read http://home.mindspring.com/~wrltc/lswp.pdf A book I wrote for par­ents doing re-modeling or hav­ing it done. And lead issues in gen­eral. It was paid for by a fed/state grant. Which means its your book as much as mine. I am NOT try­ing to sell you any­thing. Edu­ca­tion about this sub­ject is my job.

  4. J.M. Jan 28th, 2010 @ 07:05 | #4
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    I used to work in an infant room in a day­care cen­ter and DHS reg­u­la­tions had us spray the toys with diluted bleach…take a clean spray bot­tle and fill it full of water then add one table spoon of bleach to it. Spray the toys over the sink and let air dry. If there are stains on them you are try­ing to remove, you can sim­ply take a lit­tle bit of laun­dry deter­gent and rub it on the stain and then rinse it.

  5. Anonymous Jan 28th, 2010 @ 07:23 | #5
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    NO COMPRENDE

  6. Theodore Satou Jan 28th, 2010 @ 08:54 | #6
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    jee­jee, i am FINNISH!!!!!

  7. Theodore Satou Jan 28th, 2010 @ 13:40 | #7
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    oh my gosh azim­mafia speak proper eng­lish
    Whats all this ” girlzz deez dayzz ” what is the point in doing that???

  8. Shauna A Jan 28th, 2010 @ 19:49 | #8
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    No, most of the toys you will find at reg­u­lar com­mer­cial toy stores do con­tain ptha­lates. The FDA and other reg­u­la­tory agen­cies do now acknowl­edge any dan­gers in ptha­lates, parabens, diox­ins, SLS, sodium poly­acry­late, etc., so the man­u­fac­tur­ers don’t see a need to change to more expen­sive mate­ri­als. If you want non-toxic toys, shop at nat­ural baby stores. Some good online stores are:

    http://www.cottonbabies.com
    http://www.wilddill.com
    http://www.melissaanddoug.com

  9. Mallory is 13 months old Jan 28th, 2010 @ 22:33 | #9
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    I agree with hot soapy water but you could also use a 50/50 solu­tion of water and per­ox­ide. If you are look­ing for a non toxic/healthy way to clean.

  10. Army Wifee Jan 29th, 2010 @ 08:46 | #10
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    lemon juice or V8

  11. Theodore Satou Jan 29th, 2010 @ 09:00 | #11
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    fukin funny

  12. Theodore Satou Jan 29th, 2010 @ 10:10 | #12
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    I am from Esto­nia and this IS ESTONIAN LANGUAGE!:)

  13. Baba Booey! Jan 29th, 2010 @ 17:16 | #13
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    I love dis­in­fec­tant spray! I think it is awe­some. Obvi­ously you don’t want to give it to your child while it is wet and you just freshly sprayed it, but I use it on my sons toys while he is nap­ping or after he goes to bed and put then run them under hot water and let them dry. It just makes me feel bet­ter. But also hot, soapy water works great too.

  14. Theodore Satou Jan 29th, 2010 @ 17:37 | #14
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    0:10 , “ree, cloaks!!” ok… ree cloaks…

  15. Theodore Satou Jan 29th, 2010 @ 22:52 | #15
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    i no its not Ger­man and its not Eng­lish so wht lan­guage is it

  16. Theodore Satou Jan 30th, 2010 @ 10:12 | #16
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    It is ESTONIAN not German!

  17. greenarcher Jan 30th, 2010 @ 15:11 | #17
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    toys r us

  18. missy Jan 30th, 2010 @ 17:05 | #18
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    You may be sur­prised how many of those toys can actu­ally sur­vive the washer and some even the dryer. I’ve washed many stuffed toys and they come out of the washer clean and in good shape. Use the gen­tle cycle and air dry them if you’re con­cerned about the heat of dryer. You might try it first with some­thing you’re not really attached to and see how it works for you.

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