Gifts for Kids: One-Year-Old Favorites

Back with the second installment of some of my favorite gifts to give young children. (If you missed the first installment, here are my newborn favorites.)

One-Year-Old Favorites:

Pull toys—We get lots of mileage out of our dancing alligator! As soon as Eloise was off and running you could find her doing laps around the house with this (which can be deafeningly loud, warning! but it's part of the fun), and she loved it all throughout her second year and beyond. We will be pulling it back out for Amelia soon! The puppy and snail are cute, too.

Pound & tap xylophone—Eloise received this for her first birthday, and it's still in constant rotation (although I have to somehow acquire another mallet, because ours became a weapon once Amelia was born :/ and I hid our mallet and can't remember where!). This is the one we have (although it must be discontinued because it's currently really expensive) and it looks like this is the newer model.

Stacking train—I picked ours up at a local preschool consignment sale for under $5 and gave this to Eloise for her first Christmas, and have also given this as a gift a couple times.

Riding car—This is the car we gave Eloise for her first birthday and was a great alternative to stroller walks once she became too antsy for the stroller. We’ve resurrected it for Amelia and she has loved it since about the 10-month mark. (Is there anything cuter than a tiny person driving a car?)

Instagram/Facebook photo magnets—This gift idea is more for the parents initially, but I think it’s a nice way to commemorate a child’s first year. As the child grows, what better than to play with magnets that are photos of themselves? On any given day you can find Eloise configuring our collection of these into different shapes and patterns on the side of our refrigerator :)

(don't mind my dirty refrigerator or case of Rolling Rock)

And for Amelia’s upcoming first birthday (!!!), I was really scratching my head because the child has everything. A friend recently told me about Nova Natural and I could go wild on their site—so many great things. I ended up getting her this pounding bench (which costs more than the Melissa and Doug one which I also considered, but we've played with it before and the pegs can tend to drop right through the holes) (and there's also one with non-removable pegs but I didn't think it would hold either girl's interest as long, and we are all about toy longevity over here) and cuddly rag doll.