Baby MovesTM Shaker Weights by Discovery Toys

I thought that these toys were useless. I was wrong.

The problem was that we got them as a gift upon the birth of our first child. That is WAY too early for this toy. They're too long to hang from a cradle or car seat handle (babies don't like being hit in the face as they're carried, even with soft things). We took them out again when he was about 3-5 months old and just starting to sit in an exersaucer and play with both hands. Again, that was too early, because these are not small toys.

The right time to introduce these toys is when you have a free-sitting, (preferably) crawling baby. They'll be big enough that the baby wants to pick them up (babies love to pick big things up), but they're soft and light, so if they tip over onto them, there's no injury. The middle section is small enough to be grabbed easily. The rings on the handle clink together and each "weight" has a rattle inside. The bright, primary colors make for great teachable moments, as do the sun, star, moon, and mirror on the ends.

We made these available to our second child just as he started to crawl and he loves them. He usually doesn't play with them for long each time, unless someone's with him, talking about what he's seeing and doing, but he goes back to them over and over. He's now eight months old and still goes to them a couple of times a day.

I've noticed that toys like this are more interesting to babies if you take them out of the toy rotation for a few days or a week and then reintroduce them. It's like a whole new toy every time because your baby's a whole new baby. If you have a toy rotation, then you have less clutter on the floor and fewer choices to overwhelm the baby. It's also easier to see which toys really aren't interesting (instead of having the baby skip some toys just because there's so much going on visually that they get missed).

The only drawback that I've found is that my crawler would love to chew on them, but the edges are too thick to comfortably chew. But he has plenty of teethers and he has to learn sometime that not every toy is for chewing.

Bottom line: Once your baby is sitting solidly, almost crawling, introduce this toy.

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