The Rise of Wooden Baby Toys Explained

If you ever circled around parents shopping for toys for children in real life or read their comments on social media, you probably have heard them talk about wooden toys. What might seem like an oddity at first is actually quite a noticeable movement actually: parents buying wooden baby toys.

But just why is that? What makes the parents want to go out of their way to find wooden baby toys that often are pricier than those made of plastic? As it turns out, what appears to be a new trend for most is actually a kind of instinctual return to tradition.

When Did We Start Making Wooden Baby Toys?

For most of our recorded history, humanity fashioned toys out of wood and gave them to their children as playthings. A simple internet search about ancient civilizations is more than enough to find out that, among all the artifacts they left behind, many were wooden toys.

For example, a dig site in Egypt uncovered, among many, many ancient things, sets of wooden boat toys. Another excavation site from the Indus valley civilization's area, which is allegedly existed from 3010–1500 BCE, also had wooden carts, bird-shaped whistles, and monkey shape figurines attached to a string on which they could slide. No doubt they would make up for great wooden baby toys.

These are only some of the surviving examples that just give us but a glimpse of how long wooden toys have been a part of our history. Now, they are taking a well-deserved comeback.

Why Wooden Baby Toys?

Would you believe that wooden baby toys just so happen to be conveniently suitable for children due to a lot of seemingly unrelated reasons? Well, you better believe it because it is true. Here are more than a couple of reasons why wooden baby toys are much more suitable for your kids than plastic ones.

They Are 'Relaxing'

According to one South Korean study, the tactile sensation and natural aroma of wood it's relaxing to people. Moreover, wooden toys are particularly relaxing to children when compared to playing with toys made out of man-made substances like plastic.

On top of that, woodworkers carve the wooden baby toys to fit perfectly to the grip of the babies' hands for extra comfortability. Finally, since they lack flashy lights and buttons, wooden toys cannot cause sensory overload to the brain. Instead, it might help the child think because...

They Encourage Imaginative Play

While remote control and button-pushing toys have clear instructions on how to play with them, wooden toys do not. They rarely have joints like an action figure and are little more than an abstract, playful-looking representation of something. And that its why they encourage thinking.

Since there is no clear way to play with them, nor do the toys execute predeterminate actions, it's up to the children to figure out how to play with them. Encouraging children to come with their own playstyles for wooden toys like MUKAYIMO's also stimulates their thinking capabilities early on, which is one of the building blocks of critical thinking, analytical abilities, and overall intelligence.

You Can Say Wooden Baby Toys Are an Investment

As said before, wooden toys are particularly long-lasting and, with a little maintenance, can look just as good as new. When crafted, high-quality wooden toys do have a very sturdy build that can withstand quite the rough treatment children are bound to dish out. As such, they are long-lasting.

Moreover, they can last so long, in fact, that you children's children might have a chance to play with the same set as their parents did. Just imagine, A set of toys made it out of dig site at least 3000 years, if not more after someone first played with them and in very good shape all things considered.

Wooden baby toys might be a bit pricier than plastic ones. But, with proper care, you are already are paying for the toys of at least another generation of your family when buying a set of them. Also, they are safe for children.

Wooden Baby Toys Are Not Toxic, Plastic Baby Toys on The Other Hand…

Research study upon research study points out repeatedly the fact that plastic is highly likely to carry chemicals that enter your body on contact. These chemicals remain there, and, surprise, some of them are dangerous. Even more unfortunate still, a lot of them are particularly dangerous for little babies due to their body's still-in-development detoxification system.

Yet, are all plastic toys harmful to children? The long-short of it is that the plastic toys you need to watch out for as a parent are those containing Bisphenol A or BPA. BPA is a synthetic chemical capable of making plastic sturdier as a material and able to withstand impact better.

Unfortunately, it does have side effects, which long-term exposure to it we still have yet to understand. BPA can mimic estrogen, the female sex hormone, which happen to cause a variety of effect in the body which are concerning.

So far, effects linked to BPA exposure to infants range from increased risk to obesity, cardiac disease, diabetes, cancer, and sexual dysfunction later in life. The findings were so concerning that the FDA banned the use of BPA for making baby bottles.

To this day, research continues to uncover the damage potential BPA holds further. When it comes to plastic toys, make sure that it does not have BPA in it. To err on the side of safety, even more, buy only plastic toys made of polypropylene, or PP, a plastic with very low environmental impact and toxicity.  Or, better yet, switch to MUKAYIMO's wooden baby toys completely.

Wooden Baby Toys' Paint

Wooden baby toys are completely non-toxic as long as the paint on them is non-toxic. Acrylic paints and watercolor paints with 'AP non-toxic' label are safe for the most part. Milk paint also happens to be 100% non-toxic since it's all-natural.

All high-quality wooden toy brands like MUKAYIMOTOYS use non-toxic paint as well, so there's little to worry about if you choose right.

In short, wooden baby toys are the safest bet for healthy, educational child's play and MUKAYIMO woodentoys are here to get you the highest quality wooden baby toys out there.