What to Buy a 2 Year Old Boy

I was looking at my stats the other day, not something I do often, and a few people have been led to my blog searching under google for gift ideas for 2 year old boys.

Joseph turned 2 two weeks ago, so now the dust has settled on his new toys, which ones have been a hit?

By far the biggest success has been this easel. I didn't buy it because of the branding, which is, thankfully very subtle. It's incredibly sturdy, and has stood up to two toddlers thumping the dickens out of it carefully depicting scenes in chalk. On the other side is a white board. For under £20, this is a fantastic gift, and the home assembly required is, thankfully, very simple. One of the reasons I decided on an easel was to encourage his standing, and its been really helpful for Joseph to have this to focus on whilst he's standing.

To accompany the easel I bought these super washable Crayola markers Joseph got marker everywhere, on his clothes, hands, face, and it washed off with ease! The colours are very pretty too.

Joseph loves cars, and we bought a selection of die cast metal cars and a train, just from our local toyshop. He loves cars that fit into his hand that he can push around.

Animals are a favourite here, and we bought him the Playmobil 123 Noah's Ark which he loves. All the figurines fit into the ark and it has a handle, and as we do quite a lot of travelling we thought this was the ideal toy for him. He is just starting to say animal names, so its great for his language development too.

Other things that have been a hit are piles of books. He loves his bed time story, particularly rhyming stories. We bought him a couple of Julia Donaldson books - Night Monkey Day Monkey and Stick Man, as well as "Each Peach Pear Plum" one of my favourites when I was a little girl.

I also quite like having DVDs and we bought him Pingu and Yo Gabba Gabba. I was quite delighted to discover that Yo Gabba Gabba has been re dubbed for the English market, and gone are the really annoying American accents that were on the version we watched in Australia.

By shopping wisely we were able to get quite a few things for Joseph's birthday without breaking the bank. I think with toddlers "more is more" lots of little things are a good idea, for toddlers with short attention spans!

Joseph was given a Zingzilla guitar by a friend of mine, it's very loud, but its been another favourite! Joseph loves music!

He also received lots of puzzles, which aren't quite a hit with him yet but I'm sure will be as time goes on.