From the author: Npaisano for Mom’s Page: In order to understand the appropriateness and age norm for using a toy, you need to understand what is best required for the development of a child in a particular age period. But there are several general rules for purchasing toys for any age. First: there must be minimalism in toys. Let there be few toys, but they will be high-quality, beautiful, useful toys. Don’t fall for the trick that you can afford to buy this “so what, what nonsense” for your baby. Be that as it may, there is no need to develop in a child the habit of wasting money, teaching him to surround himself exclusively with material things, strengthening greed and the desire to have something like everyone else, or cooler than everyone else. Second: it is better to teach your child to play with objects that bear little resemblance to standard toys. Large pieces of fabric, ropes, laces, boxes, boards (plywood), and clay are suitable for this. There is an excellent book by A. Rogovin “I want to do it myself.” It offers various non-standard ideas for the most ordinary “non-toy” things. Third: Any toy should leave room for creativity, imagination, and ideas. But modern toys, thought out to the smallest detail, often do not develop and, in addition, inhibit the development of imagination. Most intellectual toys teach you to simply act according to a model and practice the proposed skills. What is useful to buy and at what age? When a child is born, he has both a physiological and psychological need to be closer to his mother. Therefore, an ideal gift for mother and baby would be a sling and a feeding pillow. Further, when the baby is already keenly interested in objects, familiar rattles and bells are suitable. But, again, you don’t need to buy a lot of them and the same type. Let the child have rattles from an early age that form aesthetic feelings and sound melodiously. As the year approaches, you can acquire cubes, pyramids, sorter cubes, pushers (cars, carts, etc.), beads for putting on a cord or wire, lacing, and nesting dolls. Although these toys, on the one hand, are needed for practicing skills, at this age they are useful for developing perception, motor skills and coordination. And, again, the time devoted to these toys should be minimal. They are more diagnostic and show how much the child is improving in the development of a particular function. So they are more for an “exam” rather than a game. In principle, the child himself will leave them when he has had enough and “at the call of his heart” he will go to play with your “toys” (boxes, buckets, mops, etc.). Books are a must. Choosing books is a separate issue altogether. But try to give preference to folk tales, poems, and songs. From the age of two, a child can be introduced to lotto and dominoes. These games develop attention well. By changing the task, you can develop memory and imagination. Of course, at two years old, a child is unlikely to play by all the rules, but he can be taught to play by showing how one picture relates to another, to expand his vocabulary, and to classify different objects into groups. Start mastering large puzzles and cubes united by one pattern. Thus, we shape perception and thinking. Finger theater or any other type of theater will be good entertainment. At the same time, memory, attention, and imagination are formed. As your child grows, you need to make a distinction between toys for boys and toys for girls. By the age of 3, it is already important that the child understands his gender identity and forms the appropriate line of behavior through play. Of course, it’s not scary if a boy pushes a doll in a stroller, and a girl rolls a car, but it is important that the girl, in principle, knows how and loves to play with dolls, and the boy is interested in “manly things.” Let the girl have a baby doll that she would nurse, dress, and feed “for fun.” This is important for the development of maternal qualities, which normally should develop with.