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At NBS, we love wooden toys and we think they make the best Christmas gifts. Here are our top 5 reasons why…
The quirky craftsmanship of wooden toys. Fairy Castle Wooden Music Box from BigJigs £9.75
Children Love them!
Wooden toys guarantee big wide smiles on Christmas morning. Wood stimulates a child with its varying colours and textures. A small child’s senses are far more attuned than our own, so even a toy’s smell is hugely important.
Wooden smell is natural, musty; real in other words – compared to sterilised plastic. Wood is also warm to the touch.
If like me, you feel strongly that a child learns best in the natural outdoors, then giving her wooden toys is an extension of this.
A wooden toy’s simplicity also lets children’s imaginations take over and project whatever scenario they want onto the toy. This is unlike many all singing, all dancing plastic equivalents which take the make-believe out of childhood by doing all the thinking for little ones.
A wooden toy's simplicity lets imagination take over. Moover Dolls Pram - Red £62.95
They’re Safer
Wooden toys make safer Christmas gifts as they tend to be painted with natural dyes and non-toxic paints. In other words you won’t risk mum and dad slipping your well-meaning plastic gift into the Oxfam pile comes Boxing Day!
Some may scoff at over cautious parents, but the fact is that although manufacturers may be reducing lead content in plastic, recent research has uncovered some Chinese factories replacing lead with more poisonous Cadmium in their children’s products.
There are also concerns over endocrine disruptors in plastic which could affect children’s hormones levels and growth. Because children and babies have such small bodies which are still developing, little ones are more affected by chemical-nasties. Ofcourse, a baby’s tendency to chew and lick everything in sight doesn’t help matters. Go to the National Resourses Defense Council’s site for more info on endocrine disruptors. Their advice on teething rings is pretty unequivocal:
“Do not give young children soft plastic teethers or toys, since these leach potential endocrine disrupting chemicals.”
Wooden teethers and rattles are far safer. Wooden Touch Ring Rattle from Heimess £6.25
They’re Fantastic Value
A wooden toy is for life not just for Christmas (OK, please forgive us the pun!). They last. Not just from sibling to sibling, but down through the generations. What is more charming than a wooden toy your granny played with as a child? (NB.Vintage toys do not make good teething rings because the paint may be toxic, and be very wary of small parts because safety standards weren’t nearly so strict back then).
If a wooden toy breaks you can mend it but plastic doesn’t age so well, after a few years the shiny surface and bright colours look faded, scratched and moth eaten.
Wooden toys last. Not just from sibling to sibling, but down through the generations. Wooden Baby Walker with Bricks £27.22
They’re Sustainable and Biodegradeable
Every year media criticism over our collective Christmas consumption binge gets louder. Buying a wooden toy is a vote for sustainability. Wood is a renewable source and when a your gift is finally consigned to that scrapheap in the sky, it will biodegrade – plastic will not.
A lot of plastic ends up in the world’s oceans, entering the food chain – poisoning sea life, birds and eventually us. Watch this film to find out more, it’ll change your views on plastic I promise you:
And wooden toys are ever so easy on the eye…
This one’s for the parents! When did you last see some family-home spread in this month’s glossy featuring a bright pink plastic doll’s house? Nope, I haven’t either.
When the great and the good let photographers into their home, it’s wooden toys all the way. Why? Because they look good. No one wants their antique chaise longue with matching wallpaper and hand-stiched cushions upstaged by the latest neon plastic creations. OK, I admit it my house is pretty much 100% Ikea, but I still far prefer the quirky craftsmanship of a few wooden toys over an ever increasing pile of played-with-once branded plastic creations.
Wooden toys look good! Bigjigs Rail Wooden Alphabet Train £42.95
Have we convinced you about the joys of wooden toys? Click here to see our selection of wooden goodies from baby gyms and quirky mobiles to shape sorter trucks, play palaces, train sets and chunky jigsaw puzzles. Prices start at £5.25, and there’s free UK postage on all purchases. 
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