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So, you've heard about the Montessori Method and its child-centered approach to education. But that will probably start in a few years, right? Actually, you can start your little one off with Montessori toys from infancy!
Montessori baby toys are simple, passive toys that do nothing on their own. When babies play with Montessori baby toys, they engage their senses, practice motor skills, and discover more about how the world works around them. Wooden blocks and shape sorters are examples of baby Montessori toys.
The purest Montessori toys are made of wood and other natural materials. Still, some families have serious allergies or a need to sterilize toys often, which natural materials do not handle well. So, the following list includes silicone Montessori-inspired toys as well as those made of natural materials.
1. Stacking Cups
Stacking cups are at the top of this list because they serve several purposes. Babies playing with stacking cups can practice grasping the cup shape, releasing, making sounds in the cups, scooping, pouring, sipping, stacking, and balancing.
Moreover, cups make different sounds when they are dropped, rolled, clapped together, or slapped on something soft. We added a raised pattern on the top of each cup so your little one can also practice stamping sand. They are handy learning toys!
We made our stacking cups with high-quality food-grade silicone for durability, softness, and easy cleaning. If your little one plays with them in the dirt, you can pop them into the dishwasher or sterilize them for a few minutes in boiling water before handing them back. Nifty!
2. Silicone UFO Pulling Toy
Our silicone UFO Pulling Toy is a unique challenge for tiny hands working on fine motor skills! Covered with multiple patterns and textures, this toy has a lot for your baby to explore and discover. The best part? As your baby pulls the silicone strings, they make a unique sound!
We use excellent quality silicone that is 100% food-grade, so don't worry about your wee one chewing pieces off. The UFO pulling toy is a favorite travel toy for babies and one-year-olds, so this one will see hours of playtime!
3. Wooden Shape Sorter
Classic as they are, wooden shape sorters are a sensory delight and cognitive challenge. The feel and sound of the wood, as little ones drop shapes inside, engage babies' senses of touch and sound, while the brightly-colored shapes catch the eye.
Don't expect your baby to consistently figure out the shape puzzle in the first year. You can ask your little one if she thinks a particular shape will fit through a specific hole in the box to make it a game. Hearing you describe each shape and playing with the pieces are foundational to actually learning how to finish the puzzle later.
4. Wooden Rattles
Folks go back and forth on this one. On the one hand, wooden rattles are fantastic for infants because they are easy to grasp, made of natural materials, make pleasant sounds, and stimulate several senses.
On the other hand, wooden rattles are not easy to clean, cannot be sterilized (porous material holds bleach or chemicals and can crack easily), and new teeth will damage the surface quickly.
So, if you like the benefits of wooden rattles, it wouldn't hurt to have a few at the beginning. However, watch your baby closely to ensure he isn't denting them or getting them super nasty.
If your wooden toys need cleaning, ensure you do it in a way that won't damage the wood or harm your baby. Read The Dos and Don'ts of Disinfecting Baby Toys: A Comprehensive Guide for more!
5. Silicone Teething Ring Set
Babies have been chewing on teething toys and playing with stacking rings ever since ever! Those sore, itchy gums drive little ones to chew on whatever is at hand, so why not hit two birds with one stone and turn a classic toy into a teething ring set?
To ensure babies' safety, we opted to create this teething ring set with high-quality food-grade silicone. It's durable yet soft, sturdy yet chewable, and textured yet easy to clean! With various weights, sizes, patterns, and colors, babies have a lot to explore in this set—all while alleviating those sore gums.
6. Wooden Xylophone
Adding a noise-maker to this list is a must! Babies playing with a wooden xylophone explore different sounds and cause-and-effect relationships and use a tool to hit something for hand-eye coordination practice. It's a win!
There are also several materials to feel in a xylophone: wood, metal, and steel. So, instead of dreading the noise, let your baby explore "making music" and join in for some goofy giggles!
7. Wooden Ball Box
No list of baby Montessori toys is complete without balls! A wooden ball box is a tactile, aural, and visual challenge for babies due to the variety of smooth wood, the sound of the balls in the box, and watching the ball disappear and reappear.
Once your baby can sit up independently, this box will likely entertain him for hours. You can mix things up a bit by handing him different toys that fit through the hole: cars, rocks, keys, soft things, and marbles work well with supervision.
You can also try adding a little piece of fabric to the tray so your baby can hear the difference in sound. There are many creative tricks to explore!
8. Wooden Play Gym
Before your little one can sit up independently, she needs something to look at and reach for to practice early physical skills on the floor. That's where a wooden play gym comes in! Ideally, you will choose a gym with high-contrast toys of multiple materials for your baby to fixate on.
A note about play gyms: the market is saturated with brightly-colored play gyms blasting obnoxious music and flashing buttons. All this is overstimulating for an infant. Sure, your little one will get used to it and even learn to like it, but what would that teach your baby's mind?
Babies are not born needing constant overstimulation or a new thing to look at every thirty seconds; they are not addicted to TikTok yet! They have short attention spans, but they need to focus that little bit on one skill at a time to develop it.
So, foster that from the beginning to work with your child's natural development. To learn more about how babies develop, read 7 Things Every Parent Should Know About the Early Stages of Child Development.
9. Wooden Cars
Around six months old, babies become fascinated by moving parts. By then, they've learned to grasp and release, pull and push, and pass things from one hand to the other. So, they begin to focus on refining those skills (more control) and applying them purposefully to toys.
Wooden cars are excellent for this practice because they have a clear result when pushed in the "right way." You'll be surprised at how quickly your little one realizes that pushing a car sideways or on its roof is ineffective compared to its wheels forward and backward.
Some babies even like to hold a wooden car in one hand and use a finger to move the wheels studiously. My first did this often with such fixation that we had to put our hand on the toy to get his attention!
Once your baby's first teeth poke through the gum line, it may be wise to put the wooden cars up for a bit because your teething baby may puncture or splinter the wood or even pop a wheel off. At least keep an eye on your little chomper as he plays with a wooden car during this time!
10. Wooden Blocks
Wooden blocks are classic but definitely worth the investment in your little one's education! They are tactile, colorful, perfectly sized for little hands, textured, and stackable—perfect for all kinds of fine motor skill practice!
The only thing that isn't great about wooden blocks is their inability to be sterilized. The porous material will hold onto those cleaning chemicals, dry out, and crack easily after sterilization, so you've got to just wipe them down with warm, soapy water.
Otherwise, wooden blocks are fun for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, so they will entertain for years. Moreover, little ones are quick to realize that wooden blocks are perfect to combine with other types of toys for more imaginative play!
11. Woven Basket
As your baby gains mobility and starts exploring his home, he will need a basket to store his treasures. A cotton woven basket is perfect for this because it is soft, lightweight, sturdy, and won't hurt if fallen on.
In the coming years, woven baskets will be your best friend in organizing your little one's toys on a play shelf, but for rolling and crawling infants, they are a fun bin to sit in, wear, put things into, and dump things out of.
12. Wooden Cup and Egg Set
Here is a unique challenge for babies! A wooden cup and egg set is exactly what it sounds like. But why? These smooth, odd shapes are challenging for babies to grasp and manipulate, but they are sized well enough so babies cannot resist them!
Babies learn to grasp, release, and pass things from one hand to the other from months one to six. But putting things together is a different skill, primarily when those things are oddly shaped.
When not trying to put the egg in the cup, your little one can observe how the egg wobbles as it rolls or practice drinking out of the cup. Your baby can also hear different sounds of things dropped into the cup. Lots of lessons from something so simple!
13. Sliding-Top Box
A sliding-top box is ingenious for babies working on fine motor skills! It is a simple box divided into two compartments. The lid covers only half of the box and has a hole in the center that perfectly fits a ball. When a baby pushes a ball into the hole, she cannot see the ball until she slides the lid over.
This toy trains your little one's concept of object permanence, meaning the ball will still exist when out of sight. It also exercises your little one's ability to grasp, drop, slide, and pull.
This particular sliding-top box has three balls of different materials (wood, felt, knit), so your baby can feel and hear different weights. How neat is that?
14. Interlocking Discs
In the early months, infants practice a lot of finger and hand pinching, grasping, and releasing. A wooden interlocking disc toy is a fantastic challenge because it requires babies to twist their wrists or open their hands more.
As simple as it is, this toy is an excellent skill-builder toy for babies learning to pass things between their hands!
If you are feeling a bit lost as to how such simple toy constructions are beneficial for your baby, read Early Childhood Skills and Montessori Education: What You Should Know.
15. Key Ring
The Montessori Method encourages parents to allow their babies and young children to explore lots of real-life items. Gaining familiarity with everyday items helps your little one become more grounded, understand her environment, and be less likely to steal "forbidden" things you need.
One great example of an everyday item that enchants babies is a keyring. The shiny, jingling metal is irresistible to rapidly growing minds, especially since they see their parents carrying them!
You can let your little one explore your key ring or make one out of stainless steel keys from the store. This is one of the few full-metal items your baby will explore, so it is a good one to give your baby as you sit nearby.
In a Nutshell
The first year of babyhood is full of wonder as everything is new to your little one! Providing a variety of safe, nonelectric toys is a superb way to begin broadening your baby's horizons. Whenever you can, let your little one discover and study real items around the house--it's a crucial part of development.
Provide more complex toys that engage those new skills as your baby grows in skill and ability. For ideas of Montessori toys for one-year-olds, check out 15 Best Montessori Toys for 1-Year-Olds. Though it doesn't feel like it most days, time flies!
