Wood you like to play? Choosing wooden toys
With a planet drowning in plastic the switch to wooden toys may be one thing to help prevent the crisis. With wooden toys becoming reasonably priced, featuring popular characters, readily available and aesthetically pleasing why wouldn’t you?
We knew we wanted to make Munchkin as single use plastic free as possible from before he was born (though, we admit, it took months to be totally plastic free). So we switched his nappies, wipes, removed nappy bags, bought second hand plastic (or promised to re-gift or hand down) and always aim to buy wooden toys. Read about our plastic swaps and promises in the links below.
Admittedly, with toys, its not always this simple. Toddlers are stimulated by lights and sounds, where wooden toys can be more aimed at role play, or mentally challenging tasks like puzzles, shape or colour sorting. Knowing this, we didn’t avoid plastic to allow Munchkin access to these features, but use Facebook marketplace, or when buying new, are happy knowing we will use this for Baby-G 2.0, or sell on or donate in the future.
However there are many a wooden alternative to plastic toys and their prices are decreasing. Just weeks ago, we found a solid wooden alphabet animal shaped puzzle in Wilkinson’s for £5. The big shows are also going plastic free with ‘Hey Dougee’ and ‘Peppa Pig’ getting eco-friendly with their offerings so there’s something for every child.
a £5 wooden alphabet puzzle from Wilko’s Wooden Peppa Pig toys
My only worry now though, is when you take a glance up the older children’s aisles in our toy shop. It seems the older kids get, the more limited the wooden offerings become. Lets hope this changes before Munchkin grows up.
So why not treat your little one this Christmas, and also help save this wonderful planet for their future?
Thanks for reading,