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My baby boy is turning 9 months old this week, I can’t believe it! I already mentioned in my gift guide for toddler girls that for Christmas this year, we’re trying out the Want, Need, Wear, Read method, meaning they each get 4 gifts from us. (We did decided to let them get each other something… Blaire really wanted to pick out something for Ben!)
Since Ben is our second child, our home is already stuffed full of the latest and greatest toddler toys and baby gear. So it’s REALLY hard to come up with a “need” for him. I put a lot of thought into this list so it’s not only a holiday gift guide, it will work for baby’s on their first birthdays, too!
Want: Shape Puzzle | Balls | Name Puzzle | Pig in a Blanket Set
Need: Teether Set | Placemat Plate | Sippy Cups | Convertible Carseat
Wear: Grey One Piece | Navy/Striped PJs | Moccs | Socks | Trucker Hat | Footie PJs
Read: Llama, Llama Zippity Zoom | The Alphabet Book | Quiet Loud | Shake it Up Baby | I Love You Through and Through | Excuse Me
Most of these are fairly self-explanatory, so I won’t go in-depth with each of them. But there are a few I thought I may as well mention. After living in a house full of brightly colored, plastic children’s toys, we are really embracing wooden toys with Ben. And he LOVES them! They are his favorite to chew on. Blaire LOVES her wooden name puzzle, so we had to get Ben his own.
Many children are ready to move from their infant carrier to a convertible carseat at or around the age of 12 months. I think we moved both of our children around 10 months when they were too heavy to lug around in their infant seats any longer. This seat is the 4-in-1, so they won’t need another seat after this one, you can convert it to fit their needs. AND it allows them to extend rear-face, which is important to us. Blaire is still going strong RF at 3 years and 10 months old! For reference, her regular Graco 4ever seat lets her RF up to 40lbs (she is 37 right now) and the Extend2Fit version lets them RF until 50lbs.
I tried to find timeless, neutral pieces that fit into any wardrobe. The Pals socks have great reviews because not only are they cute and fun, which means kids love them, but they have grippers on them and they’re thick and warm, which make them perfect for nights when your children’s PJs don’t have footies built in.
For Blaire’s first and second birthdays, we did the friends party separate from the family party, and told our friends no gifts. So that definitely helped to control the influx of random toys. We did combine them for her 3rd birthday (I was 8 months old and just wanted the least complicated party… hahaha) and by this age, she has been to enough birthday parties to see other children get presents. So we stopped being the mean parents who specifically asked friends not to bring gifts. We also tested out creating a Wishlist for her and that worked well! You can make them at both Target and Toys R Us. She loved using the little scanner gun to scan what she liked.
What gifts did your 12-month-old love?