Top Toys For a 12 Month Old Boy

The best toys for a 12 month old boy, chosen by a Mom

Are you looking for the best toys for a 12 month old boy, maybe as a first birthday gift or for Christmas, and want to choose wisely?

Look no further because I have reviewed the best toys for 1 year old boys.

As a mother to a 3 year old boy I know that the best gifts for a one year old boy are toys that will last the test of time and become more than a brief diversion, something that will grow with your baby and last well into toddler hood. Indeed, many of the toys that my one year old played with are still firm favorites now that he is three.

One year of age is a time of transition, from being a baby to a toddler, and you want to choose toys that will reflect his increasing mobility and independence.

Children need a variety of toys to provide different stimuli to encourage their brains to develop and reach their full capacity. Here you will find an excellent range of toys that are guaranteed to keep your 12 month old happy.

I have also included useful information about the development of 1 year old babies, and how the toys that I have chosen will help them to develop these skills. This is particularly helpful if you are buying toys for someone elses toddler, or if you are planning ahead and are not sure what toys will be suitable once your baby is a year old.

If you are looking for inspiration for an upcoming birthday, I hope that the toy reviews for boys age 1 year old will give you ideas for your own one year old boys, and please remember that all of the top toys I have reviewed here would also make suitable gifts for 1 year old girls.

Between the ages of 12 and 18 months of age your child will become more mobile and will love to play with toys that can be pushed and pulled across the floor. 

Learning to pick up smallish objects encourages fine motor skill development which is important for tasks learned later, like writing. and using imaginative play to role play with the figures aids speech development.

Little People are a definite favourite with toddlers, and this Fisher Price Little People Lil' Movers Airplane will provide endless fun as they role play with the three figures provided and sing a long to the catchy song.

My 3 year old son loves all his Little People, but the airplane is probably his favourite. This was one of his first Little People wheeled vehicles, and the carry handle on the top of the plane helps him to push it along the floor, or indeed more recently to whoosh it through the air. 

Cicak Junior has been playing with this airplane now for almost two years, and I fully expect him to get a lot more play time with it.

As your baby approaches their first birthday you will notice that they are beginning to make more recognisable sound, and are also using non verbal language, for example shaking their head to mean "no".

Toys that encourage them to talk are therefore beneficial in developing their speech.

Children see and hear people using their cell phones all the time and children love to copy what adults are doing. This Smilin' Smart Phone is the perfect phone for them to be practising calling their friends.

This toy phone provides hours of educational fun for your one year old, with sounds, phrases, and songs accessed by pressing the buttons, which are good and big and easy for little fingers to manipulate.

My son has two toy cell phones and he by far prefers this one. Even though it is a lot bigger than our phones he holds it to his ear and has pretend conversations with it.

Cicak Junior got this phone as a gift at a little over 1 year of age and is still using it three years later, which definitely represents excellent value for money.

Building with blocks is an excellent way to develop a child's eye to hand coordination, and all children love it when they get to knock over a stack of blocks that you have built together.

Mega Block First Builders building blocks are perfect for developing a toddler's eye to hand coordination. This brightly coloured set has 80 pieces that are large enough for little fingers to manage, and it also comes with a handy storage bag.

At one, my son loved to pick the bricks up, throw them around, explore their texture and "help" me to build things.

Now at three years of age he will sit and play with his bricks. He can build basic objects, add bricks onto wheels to make vehicles and build towers.

A building block set will last your child for maybe three years, and if you buy a set such as these Mega Block ones they are compatible with the smaller bricks that are suitable for older children. 

By the age of 1 your baby will probably be rapidly developing into a toddler, and toys that enable them to stand alone, and walk by holding onto it will be very popular and will also help their gross motor development. 

The VTEch Sit to Stand Learning Walker is consistently a topseller with Amazon and is the walker that I would personally recommend. 

My own baby had this exact same walker for his first Xmas and when he walked less than three weeks later I thought we had a toy that would no longer be used - but I was wrong. He loved the activity panel on it and still loved to push it around.

We eventually gave it to a friend with a baby, but Cicak Junior still loved to play with it when we visited them.

Around the one year mark babies should be able to manipulate items in order to get a response, for example shaking a maraca. 

They should also have the necessary fine motor skills to be able to hold the hammer and attempt to hit the keys with it.

This extremely well made and durable Hohner Kids Glockenspiel is designed for ease of use by little fingers, and is currently the number one best seller in the Kids Instrument Accessories category with Amazon.com.

With safety in mind, the musical bars are designed so that they cannot be removed, and the color coding on both the keys and the songsheet will enable even quite a young child to attempt a tune.

My three year old boy has had a similar glockenspiel for a while now, and whilst he is too young to play an actual tune he loves to hit the keysw and make a "tune".

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