Toy recommendations - 2 year old boy

sillysocks

Thinking of getting a few new toys for my boy who was 2 in May, so 2 and 4 months. A lot of his toys are baby stuff or his sisters!
Don't want to spend a fortune on things he won't use but he's not really into anything in particular yet. Does anyone have any recommendations for toys that their 2 year old loves? Not looking for big things, more hits a couple of smaller things maybe 15-25 eur per toy type thing!

dori_dormer

My boys favourite things are duplo, his train set from ikea, and his toot toot cars.

bp

As above...also arts and crafts, playdo, stickers (buy a load cheap online) etc. And play food....loves to cook when I cook

scaryfairy

Playmobil has nice things in the 1-2-3 series. Boots.ie (and many others) sell them with good discounts. We have the spaceship, cars, farm etc, all well loved

Itellitasitis

Ikea have fab wooden train sets and very reasonably priced.
Lego/bricks.


Sand - €5 in Smyths/Tesco. Put in sieves/shells/small containers/cups/spoons/bucket/spade etc. Or put it in a box and let him put his feet and hands in it. Let him feel the texture of it.
Basin of water, a sponge and a plastic cover underneath. Again some containers (big and small), cloth etc - it's great to calm as manipulating the material/sponge helps get rid of tension.
Cornflour. Put it on a place mat, add a little water and let it make a paste. Let him pick it up and fall through his hands.
I know they are not quite what you are asking about but children love doing those activities and they are so cheap and simple but keep them engrossed (especially when stuck indoors).

Moonbeam

I have a 2 and a half year old.
He is obsessed with trains,loves playdoh and spends half his days playing with lego.

sillysocks

Thanks all! Will look up those (although not sure I'm brave enough to give him sand or flour!). Heatons have a sale so might get a few things there. He's at a childminder most of the week Mon-Fri ao does most of his playing there anyway!

fro9etb8j5qsl2

Bit ot but can I ask those of you who have toot toot sets and train sets- do you keep them set up all the time or do you take it out and set it up/put away as you go? We got a wooden train set and 2 toot toot sets as gifts but I've never really taken them out because they're so bulky and the thought of taking them apart and putting away after play puts me off.

Moonbeam

my 2 year old just uses everything as track so I get away with not setting it up often:) The Thomas track master sets are quite hard to set up.

I just tucked him in to bed with lightning mc queen,Thomas and Percy:) He had and loved toot toot cars but he has outgrown them and the 1 year old loves them.

dori_dormer

I tend to set them up one day a week. The cars are always out! He'll pull some tracks from their box and I'll limk a few together then. The cars drive over radiators, windowsills, sofas, and take death plunges down the stairs......

I think at last count he had 10 toot toot cars. There's always 1 in the changing bag, one in the car etc. just in case . His current favourite is a quad bike that speaks german

Moonbeam

haha, I used to do that with the toot toot cars,I had them everywhere just in case:)

Akrasia

The imaginext range of toys from fisher price are ridiculously well made. They'll last for years and our 2 year old boy loved them. The dragon is really cool.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mattel-Y0891-Imaginext-Dragon/dp/B008HF5R76/ref=sr_1_34?ie=UTF8&qid=1441698344&sr=8-34&keywords=imaginext

The prices go from around 10 euros for smaller sets to 80 or 90 euros for the big ones.

Mink

This ride-on alphabet train from v-tech. My fella got it for his 1st birthday and it's the one toy he still regularly plays with at 3 yrs old. It does help that he's train mad, but he loved it before he discovered actual train sets.

http://www.adverts.ie/educational-toys/ride-alphabet-train/8361748

Upon looking at Smyths, it seems v-tech have changed it. I would personally go with the one above, just go second hand.

https://www.smythstoys.com/ie/en-ie/toys/pre-school-electronic-learning/c-465/vtech-infant/p-14189/vtech-push-and-ride-alphabet-train/

dori_dormer

We have the adverts one, my boy wasn't too interested in it, he got it for his first bday too. He could shove the blocks through the shoot but couldn't get them to sit on the side. I think the new smyths one looks way better! Loads of buttons to push!

iguana

Akrasia wrote: »

The imaginext range of toys from fisher price are ridiculously well made. They'll last for years and our 2 year old boy loved them. The dragon is really cool.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mattel-Y0891-Imaginext-Dragon/dp/B008HF5R76/ref=sr_1_34?ie=UTF8&qid=1441698344&sr=8-34&keywords=imaginext

The prices go from around 10 euros for smaller sets to 80 or 90 euros for the big ones.

My son looooooves Imaginext so much. The only problem I have with them is that with very, very rare exceptions there are no female figures. Up until this year there was only Catwoman. They've since added 3 new DC females, 3 females in the Power Ranger line and 3 non superhero females who aren't available on this side of the Atlantic. It's pretty important to a child's development for them to see both men and women represented in a variety of roles, so I bulk out his playsets with females from the Playmobile range (so far I've added female firefighters, doctors/paramedics and cops) and my brother and I are making some female superhero custom figures to go with the playsets he's getting for Christmas.

iguana

Ryder Brave Radioactivity wrote: »

Bit ot but can I ask those of you who have toot toot sets and train sets- do you keep them set up all the time or do you take it out and set it up/put away as you go? We got a wooden train set and 2 toot toot sets as gifts but I've never really taken them out because they're so bulky and the thought of taking them apart and putting away after play puts me off.

S has a small Toot Toot set, that I leave mostly set up on a shelf. That way it only needs 3 pieces clicked together when he wants to play with it. On the other hand he has a massive wooden train set, it's actually about 5 biggish sets, a really large plastic Thomas set of tracks (made of two big sets) another type of Thomas set and I know he's getting some more train sets at Christmas. Some days I nearly weep when he wants to play with them. We have a playroom so it's not too bad if he wants to play with them for a long time, he can leave them set up for days and days if he wants. But all too often he wants to set them all up, play with them for half an hour and then move on to something else.

I have a rule though, that he can play with as many toys as he wants at a time, but when he is done with something it has to be put away properly before he moves on to something else. That means that when the trains get taken out, he can get his dragons and superheroes out to interact with them and his blocks can be used to build city towers around the tracks, whatever his imagination comes up with. But as soon as he wants to play ball or kitchen or anything that doesn't involve them, every last piece has to go back exactly where it belongs. I had to make this rule as he gets really, really annoyed when his toys aren't exactly where he expects them to be when he goes to get them. As a result he is actually very tidy and before he was even 2 and a half I'd find him tidying his tracks away really well when he was done with them. So as annoying as it can be to set up huge complicated sets, they can provide an opportunity to demonstrate good habits.

fro9etb8j5qsl2

I dragged our 2 toot toot sets down from the attic on tuesday. Nearly had a nervous breakdown figuring out how to put them together (with toddler crawling across the tracks and disassembling it bit by bit as I built it :rolleyes: ) I was afraid my little boy wouldn't show much interest but he kept coming back to it during the day playing with it and the 7mth old had a great time with it too It's all taken apart and stuffed behind the couch now, I think one day every week or 2 is definitely enough.

I have the 'only have out what you are playing with' rule too but it's me that runs around putting them away, I'd love to know how to teach the toddler to do it

dori_dormer

My 19 month old is great at putting things away at night and putting everything 'To bed' he's a bit of a perfectionist. Can't seem to make him do it during the day though!