I can’t even tell you how much money I wasted on toys that I thought my one year old would LOVE, only to see that she had ZERO interest in them. It took some trial and error, but I finally figured out what really catches their attention!
Learn from my past mistakes and jump straight to these awesome gifts that your 1 year old girl will absolutely go bananas over!
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1. VTech Sit-to-Stand Learning Walker
2. VTech Sort and Discovery Activity Cube
This activity cube is FULL of…well…activities! This thing would keep my 1 year old occupied all evening when I was cooking dinner or just relaxing at the end of a long day.
It was so cute watching her lug this around the family room and explore all of the different activities! There’s also a big opening on one of the sides and she would have so much fun transferring her toys in and out. Great for working on those motor skills!
The other reason I love this toy is because it has a lot to keep their attention, but without having 10 million pieces that end up all over your house. Mess Free Fun in a win in my book!
3. LeapFrog Scout and Violet 100 Words Book
My daughter LOVES this book.
We were slightly worried about her speech development for a while, and always wondering if she was on track. This book really helped her. It wasn’t long before we started to see that she actually knew a TON of words. And eventually she started SPEAKING the words too which was so exciting!
It’s cool because you can set it for words, songs or instructions. For example, in the instructions it says “Where’s the bear?” and your child will find the bear and it’ll tell them if they got it correct! (It has both English and Spanish)
4. MAGIFIRE Wooden Toddler Puzzles
No surprise here. Puzzles are great for your little ones development.
They’re great for hand eye coordination and fine motor skills. It’s so fun to see how excited they get when the successfully complete a puzzle!
I liked these because of their convenient size and honestly just how cute they are!
5. Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Smart Stages Chair
How cute is this little chair!?
Your little one will love being a big girl in her own special interactive chair.
Similar to a lot of interactive Fisher Price toys, it has 3 “levels” which I always appreciate it because it makes the toys last longer. (Don’t even get me started on those expensive baby shoes that they grow out of in a month!) As your child grows and develops, you can “level up” so the content grows with them so they can continue to learn and get value and excitement from the toy.
6. Baby Balance Bike
Help build your little ones leg strength and coordination with their very first bike! We use ours both inside and outside! (Outside during the summer, then cleaned it for indoor use during the colder months)
It also helps with their balance. Coordination and balance…two necessities for mastering their walking and running skills!
This one gets extra points because it looks nice and “sleek”. The cutesy stuff is fun, but sometimes you want something that looks a bit more…elegant!
7. VTech Musical Rhymes Book
This is another one of my daughter’s favorite interactive books.
It’s got the classic nursery rhymes which helps with their mental and speech development!
You have to chose these interactive books and toys wisely because some of them are SO annoying! This one, and everything on this guide passed the test for me! Don’t get me wrong…you’re probably not going to be jamming out to these when your kid isn’t around…but you won’t mind it when your little cutie pie is jammin’.
8. LeapFrog Learn and Groove Musical Table
Learning tables are a GREAT thing to get your little one who is still working on their strength and confidence with standing on their own and walking.
The table is full of intriguing activities, bright colors and fun sounds! So it encourages your baby to pull themselves up, and stand at the table. They can hold on to the table for added support, and soon enough you’ll look over and see that they are actually standing totally on their own just playing with all of buttons!
9. Mega Bloks First Builders Big Building Bag
Every baby needs a good set of blocks to tune up their motor skills!
These are great because they are jumbo size, fun colors and have several shape varieties so your baby can build a true masterpiece!
We also utilized this block set to start teaching our daughter to “clean up”. After we play with the blocks, we always have to clean up and put all the blocks back in the bag. It was super rewarding when we picked her up from daycare and got a comment about how “great she was at putting away her toys after play time”. #MomWin!
10. LeapFrog My First Learning Tablet
At 1 years old, your little one is too young for a “real” tablet, but this education learning tablet from Leap Frog is jam packed with educational and developmental activities perfect for a little toddler.
The screen is really responsive, so there’s no issues with it properly reacting to your baby’s touch which saves a lot of frustration for both you and baby.
There is so much here to keep your baby busy while you’re cooking dinner or doing work around the house. This was one of our main “go to diaper bag essentials” to keep our little one occupied while we were out and about. Great for long car rides as well.
11. TOP BRIGHT Activity Cube
This activity cube is awesome!
It’s made out of plastic and wood, which adds some nice texture elements to it, and also keeps it light weight, while still looking high quality!
Fun colors, no sharp corners, tons of activities AND the top part comes off so it can be played with separately!
Not much to say other than you can’t go wrong with this one…
12. rolimate Hammering Wooden Educational Toy
I always get my daughter toys like this because I know it’s great for her development and motor skills. Plus she just always has so much fun with them.
Hammering the colored balls through the holes on the top always results in a big laugh!
13. If Animals Kissed Good Night Board book
Books Books Books! Reading to your baby is so very important!
This little board book is so stinking cute and perfect for a quick bedtime story. My daughter loves looking at all of the different animals and pointing out the “baby” animals!
14. LeapFrog Learn & Groove Color Play Drum
To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting my daughter to love this drum as much as she did. It was one of her Christmas presents last year and she INSTANTLY loved it and played with it every single night!
Now while that may sound like torture for your ears…one thing I LOVE about this drum is the volume isn’t overly loud. Some of the companies making drums for babies seem to think your child is going to be playing a stadium show with screaming fans!
This one was made with the understanding that I am my baby’s number 1 fan and main audience, and I enjoy not losing my hearing or sanity. lol!
15. Kiddieland My First Minnie Ride On
This would make an awesome gift for your little girl! The handle on the back can also act as a support system for youngsters that are still working on mastering the art of walking. My daughter also loves putting her baby dolls on it and pushing them around. It’s SO cute!
16. Wooden Sorting Puzzle
I LOVE this little sorting puzzle. It’s so cute and much more unique then a lot of the standard plastic ones.
Sometimes the more “simple” toys end of being the best ones. I love that it is a practical real life activity (gardening), as opposed to the standard plastic shapes sorting puzzles.
17. Little Tikes Go & Grow Lil' Rollin' Giraffe Ride-On
If you want a more cutesy ride on bike then this is definitely the way to go!
With how it’s made it works great for indoor and outdoor use. It’s a little on the smaller/shorter side, so it works great for a 1 year old just getting the hang of things. If your child is 2 or above and on the taller side, this MIGHT be a little short for them though.
18. LeapFrog Violet's Learning Lights Remote
This was another diaper bag essential for us. Given that it’s a smaller toy, it made it easy to pack in the diaper bag and take on the go. This was one of my daughter’s favorites for a long time.
She often used it as a play phone rather then a remote, but who cares! As long as she was entertained and having fun that’s all that mattered to me!
19. Woby Musical Activity Cube
I was a little surprised how excited my daughter was to receive this as a gift given that she already had several activity cubes that she loved.
The giant button on the top that lights up and makes a funny noise was the first thing to grab her attention, but from there she actually ended up loving all of the activities! With her other toys she often just focuses on a few of the activities and doesn’t pay much attention to the others. Not with this one though. She had her “favorites” like the microphone and the pinball like buttons that make the tiny ball bounce up and down, but she really got amazing use out of the whole thing!
20. Baby GUND Animated Flappy the Elephant
This little elephant is so adorable! One of my friends bought this for my daughter as a present and she thought it was the coolest thing.
The ears move back and forth covering his face and he either sings, Do your ears hang low or plays Peek-A-Boo. It was so fun to watch her reactions and how excited she would get every time!
21. Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Smart Stages Piggy Bank
It’s no surprise that this is a #1 seller on Amazon.
It has over 40 songs and phrases and the colorful coins teach animals on one side, and then numbers on the other side.
Its a nice small size so it’s easy to put away and store at the end of the day so it’s not crowding up your living space!
22. Tencoz Baby Cloth Books - 6 pack
These cloth books are great for a few reasons. For one, they’re books, and books are ALWAYS a great gift for babies to help with their language development.
This comes with a pack of 6 colorful books for your baby to explore and get their little minds thinking.
Perhaps best of all, since they are cloth, they can be thrown in the wash! There’s no such thing as a baby/toddler that isn’t messy!
23. Disney Princess My First Bedtime Storybook
This is actually one of the first books I bought for my daughter, and 2 years later we’re still reading it. The stories are nice and the illustrations are such high quality!
It’s also fun to read stories with the classic characters that I grew up reading about and watching in movies!
24. Disney Baby Princess - My First Library
These baby princesses are so precious! Something about little girl versions of the classic Disney princesses and characters just warms my heart!
You get 12 different ones in this set which is awesome because it gives you lots of bed time story material to last you! There’s nothing worse then reading the SAME freaking book over and over again!
25. Disney 5-Minute Christmas Stories
I am OBSESSED with these Disney 5 Minute Story Books!! I’m fairly certain I own every single one. The quality of these books is unreal. I’m SHOCKED that they don’t charge more for these.
It’s a bigger book with a bunch of different stories in them, each of which takes about 5 minutes to read…hence the name.
The illustrations are fantastic and vibrant, the quality of the book material is top notch! These books will seriously last a lifetime! I have no doubts that my daughter will be reading this same exact book to her child one day!
Ok, now I’m over here getting teary eyed and emotional about my baby growing up. -sigh-
