Last updated on March 25th, 2023 at 08:27 am
Don’t know what toys to buy that special baby in your life? Check out our complete list of the best organic baby toys. Organized by developmental level.
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Some of the most exciting and fun purchases we make for babies and children are toys. We get to relive our childhood imagining the fun we had with toys and the possibilities for our kids. With today’s e-commerce shopping, we have literally millions of toy options to choose from. The options are seemingly endless.
There are countless toys for every interest and developmental level. Choosing the right toy is extremely important. The average household has 71 toys, but the majority of children only play with 5-10 toys at any period of time. That is a lot of toys going to waste. Not only wasting money, the average child gets $6,500 worth of toys before they reach their teens, but wasting resources on the manufacturing, packaging, and shipping of these idle toys.
Don’t waste your money and earth’s precious resources on toys that will gather dust on a shelf and end up in a landfill. There are a few tactics we can use and things to look at when buying toys to limit the negative environmental impact of our toy purchases.
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A Few Things to Consider When Purchasing Toys
A few ways to make eco-friendly choices while purchasing natural baby toys:
- Reduce: Simple buy less toys. Children receive the majority of there presents during birthdays and Christmas, consider asking friends and family to get them experience gifts or digital gifts instead of toys.
- Reuse: Buy used toys and donate or sell your baby’s toys after they have outgrown them. There are quite a few good toy subscription services, like https://greenpinatatoys.com/, that allow you to exchange unused toys for sterile, used toys in great condition. This allows your baby to have a steady stream of new toys while not contributing to material waste.
- Recycle: Many cheap baby toys are made from single-use plastics that end up in a landfill polluting our streams and soil. Purchasing toys made of recyclable or biodegradable materials will ensure that these toys can be recycled and made into other great products in the future.
- Buy good quality toys: There are so many cheaply made toys that break within days or even hours. At the low cost, it makes economic sense to just throw them away and buy a new one. This tactic might be beneficial for your finances, but terrible for mother nature. Buying good quality toys from reputable brands will ensure that your child, and many after them, will get enjoyment from that toy.
- Buy organic baby toys: Consider buying organic baby toys or natural baby toys. Toys made from sustainable sources, including renewable wood with water-based finishes, natural and organic-cotton plush toys, and toys colored with vegetable dyes instead of paint. Toys made of bamboo are a great choice, as bamboo regenerates much faster than wood.
- Purchase from Green companies: There are many environmentally and socially responsible companies out there with a number of initiatives to make our planet and society a better place to live. We will discuss a number of them in this best organic baby toys list.
A few things to avoid when buying baby toys:
- Single Use Plastics: 90% of toys are made of plastic and most of the packaging is single-use and non-recyclable plastic. 80% of all toys end up in a landfill, incinerators, or the ocean. Many of the biggest toy companies are working on making more sustainable toys, and with so many organic baby toys options, it is usually unnecessary to buy any single-use plastic toys.
- Harmful Chemicals: As scary as this sounds, toys can often contain potentially toxic materials like BPA, phthalates, lead, formaldehyde, flame retardant chemicals and PVC. Look for toys with certifications proving they are free from toxic chemicals. The type of certification is vary depending on the material the toy is made of, but here are some of them: GOLS and GOTS certified products, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 Certification, CertiPUR-US foam certification, FSC Certification, Greenguard GOLD Certification, and Made Safe Certification.
Now that you know a little about what to look for, and what to avoid, when purchasing baby toys, lets get to our list of organic baby toys.
Organic Baby Toys For Newborns (0-2 Months)
The Natural Baby Company- Tikiri My First Zoo Rattle
Your baby will have a roaring good time with this squeezable rattle. Well known for their quality cloth diapers, The Natural Baby Company designed this beauty made of 100% natural rubber and hand painted with soy based inks. This can be played with in the bath or even used as a teething aid. We couldn’t find a more eco-friendly rattle to include in our organic baby toys list.
finn + emma play gym
One of the most socially and environmentally conscious organic baby toys and products companies is Finn and Emma.
This height-adjustable play gym has a 100% birch wood frame finished with non-toxic stains and lacquers. The wooden teething toys are made from untreated Indian hardwood and finished with vegetable seed wax. The knit toys were hand-knit at an artisanal women’s collaborative in Peru using G.O.T.S. certified organic cotton yarn. All play gym dolls are removable—they can be used away from the gym as stroller or carseat toys and all of our “Stroller Toys” fit on the gym!
Best Organic Baby Toys for Infants (2 months-1year)
Bears For Humanity
Simply put, Bears For Humanity is an amazingly Green and corporately responsible company. These bears are the safest teddy bears on the market. Made from 100% GOTS certified organic cotton and stuffed with organic corn PLA fibers, these adorable bears are dyed with vegetable pigments. Absolutely no chemicals are used in the creation of these teddys.
What really sets them apart is their initiatives to help those in need. Made in the USA, these bears are hand sew and stuffed by people from underserved communities who earn a fair-living wage. Plus, with every bear sold, they donate one to a child in need.
You can feel good knowing that when your child is snuggling their lovey, that your thoughtful purchase allowed a child in need to connect with their lovey.
Green Toys Baby Toy Starter Set
All of Green Toys products are made in the USA from 100% post-consumer recycled plastics. They have recycled over 125,000 milk jugs and counting. Each toy they make saves enough energy to power a TV for 3 weeks. Their packaging is made with recycled and recyclable materials, they even use soy ink to print their packaging boxes, which biodegrades 4 times faster than petroleum based inks.
They are dishwasher safe, to make for easy cleaning and non-toxic. Green toy has a tight local supply chain to reduce the transportation emissions, making these some of the greenest on our organic baby toy list.
Best Organic Baby Toys for Toddlers (1-4 years)
Land of Dough Over The Rainbow Large Scoop Toy
Kids love developing their motor skills and using their imagination while getting their hands messy in play dough. Your child will be over the moon when they get their hands on Land of Dough over the rainbow natural play dough.
They use plant based colors, compostable glitter and packaging, and ethically sourced ingredients. Each set comes with wood play tools that are sourced using sustainable forestry practices. This made-in-America company might have created the most eco-friendly dough on the planet and had to be included in our best natural baby toys list.
Plan Toys Palamino Rocking Horse
We had to include Rocking horses on our organic baby toys list because they are a timeless, classic toy with many benefits. Most importantly, they are fun, but they also improve gross motor skills, coordination, and balance. This Palamino rocking horse from Plan Toys has many environmental benefits as well.
Plan Toys green production isn’t just a marketing ploy to pander to changing consumer demands, they have been Green since before going green was fashionable. Since 1981, it has been their mission to create a more sustainable world and they accomplish this in a number of ways.
First, they use solar energy and biomass energy to power their factories. They use trees that no longer produce latex and even reuse surplus sawdust and branches from their factories to make their toys. Through their Plan Loves Forests program, they have planted over 43,000 trees over the past 5 years. They use organic pigment for their paint and non-formaldehyde glue.
Their durable toys are made to last and through PlanToys PlayCyle program, they help families pass their toys on to others once the child has outgrown them. This supports sustainable living, encourages sharing, and gives the toys a chance to live their full play potential.
Organic Baby Toys For Bath time
Flo The Floatie Natural Rubber Duck By Oli & Carol
Everyone remembers the song lyrics “rubber ducky, you’re the one, you make bath time so much fun”, and your child will never forget their bath time with Flo the Floatie, by Oli & Carol. This female-owned company, started by two sisters, makes its toys from 100% natural rubber from sustainable Malaysian Hevea trees. They are hand-painted with food-grade dyes.
Don’t worry if your child puts this classic-looking rubber duck in their mouth during bath time (as long as you are using organic baby wash), because they are certified free of PVC, BPS, phythalates and nitrosamines.
Oli & Carol even give back a portion of their proceeds to underprivileged students in Northern India.
Honey Sticks Bath Color Drops
Your child’s colorful imagination is going to flow with these bath color drops by Honey Sticks. Made in New Zealand with 100% natural food grade ingredients, these drops are non-toxic & safe for kids. They arrive in a recyclable & reusable aluminum containter and use sustainable, recyclable and reusable ingredients and packaging throughout the whole process.
Honey Sticks also makes very sustainable bath crayons, beeswax crayons and coloring books.
Organic Baby Toys For The Beach
Eco Beach Toy Set by Love Lotte
One of the original eco-friendly toy companies made our list again. While playing with this eco-friendly beach set, your child will be lost in imaginative play. The world will be their oyster, and they might even dig some oysters up using their plastic-free, non-toxic set made of bamboo fiber and USA-grown cornstarch.
They are ergonomically designed specifically for little hands, but if they do happen to slip out of your child’s hands and get swept away by the ocean, they are fully biodegradable within 12 months, so it wont contribute to the destruction of our oceans like most other unnatural baby toys.
Sun + Water Float Tube
Most cheaply made floaties are made of PVC that can take hundreds of years to decompose. Sun+Water makes PVC floats that are made to last. The cover is made with 100% cotton and the inner tube is made with 100% butyl rubber. If for some reason you do not want your float anymore, you can give it back to the company and they will recycle it for you. Please make sure your little one has non toxic baby sunscreen on when they are playing in the sun.
Conclusion
This concludes our best organic baby toys list. I hope that you enjoyed and we helped you find the perfect toy for your little one. If you found this article useful, please forward it to anyone that might need some ideas. You can also check out our eco-friendly baby products list for more ideas. Together, we can help preserve the environment for our children’s future, one natural baby toy at a time.