We have the same doorway, and I'll admit it, it is a huge hit. It is something I would have never bought for our child, but a grandparent did, and in the end I'm really glad that she has it. She enjoys it more than I ever thought was possible, and other kids who come to play are really drawn to it. It has even encouraged playing together - a favorite game is to pass things back and forth between the door, mailbox, and window. We were opposed to plastic toys at first, but have really loosened our stance on the issue. These days we focus on if the toy fosters open-ended play.

We have the same doorway too....but unfortunately my daughter only plays with it for about 2 minutes total per day. She just doesn't seem to be as interested as I thought she'd be. Her grandparents got it for her at about 9 months, she is 21 months now, and I still keep it out with hopes that one day soon it will be a hit :)

I won't allow anything with batteries in my house. They drive me crazy! We do have a few plastic toys, although we really try to avoid them.

Our two plasticy must haves are the Bilibo and Rody. Also, those little Madame Alexander dolls from McDonald's, the Wizard of Oz and other storybook characters. It shames me to admit this, but I think we have all of them. Mind you, we never, ever eat at McDonald's (between the vegetarianism and the food allergyism, there isn't anything there we can eat), but we went there and bought the dolls. And they are among my two youngest daughters' favorite toys, so I don't regret buying them even though I know they were not manufactured under the best of circumstances (which is something we consider in most of our toy purchases).

Ours are gifts too. We have a terribly noisy lawnmower that plays music. My 2yo has had it for a year now and he still plays with it. The toys stay in the house until they aren't played with anymore and then they are easily donated.

We have a hand-me-down Leapfrog music table that is a big hit. We got it when my daughter was 6 months old and she's now 3 and still occasionally plays with it with my 1-year-old.

We also got an old-school, really beat up Exersaucer for free that I liked because it played classical music (the new ones seem louder and more annoying).

I agree with cherylp....rather than ban all plastic/battery-operated toys, I just consider whether they encourage creativity and imaginative play.

We have that same doorway at my parent's house (it was a hand-me-down toy). It's the first thing the kids head for whenever we go over there. We are there several times a week, and it's always the most popular toy.

We have this Vtech "laptop." http://www.amazon.com/VTech-80-073800-Vtech-Learning-Laptop/dp/B000M3QJPU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291672397&sr=8-1
Our 18-month-old uses it like a jukebox - he loves to be able to choose what song to listen and dance to.
Now, if someone could come up with a baby-friendly "jukebox" interface that you could plug your iphone into, so your child could choose his/her own *real* music, that would be worth every penny.

I got a fisher-price piano for my oldest for Christmas, that was 4 years ago. She played with that thing until I hid it in a closet while she was at Grandma's. I took it back out when my youngest started pulling herself up. I have just learned to tune out the tunes though I catch myself singing along! One of the best toys we have!

We have a very similar walking elephant (colored) and it was my son's favorite toy between 8 m - 14 m . My daughter at 16m loves it too.

The only plastic toys allowed are duplo blocks, a truly opened ended toy regardless of material manufactured ethically.

My aunt sent my daughter a Zhu Zhu Pets set recently. It is huge and noisy and annoying and I doubt we will keep it very long, especially after we bring more things in at Christmas time. I'm not going to be rude and turn down a gift but we have a very small home so I'm honest with people when I say that things with limited interest for her (which is pretty much any of the 3 Ps - pink, plastic, princess) won't last very long here. Space is at a premium. Toys have to last and be truly loved in order to score a permanent home on our shelves.

my daughter loves with a passion her plastic busy ball popper. I was kind of horrified when we received it as a gift but she has played with it consistently more than other toys. She also lovers her giant plastic ride on toy. If I had bought it, I would have gotten a wooden one but practically the plastic is easier on the walls and furniture!

One of those obnoxiously bright colored jumpy activity sets. It's kind of like an exersaucer but it bounces. We don't have door frames in our house for a johnny jumpy so that was our compromise. It is busy, busy, busy but we used it a lot, a lot, a lot!

We have tons of Duplos and Legos, but I think even the most stringent parents allow those :-). We have a Tonka firetruck that's long...maybe 2 feet?...that has lights and sounds and is used EVERY day (a hand-me-down that I wasn't thrilled with...but kids love it). We didn't have an exersaucer with #1, but with #2 it seemed a necessity to occasionally get her off the floor and away from her brother's sometimes-clumsy feet. It was ditched the second she started walking. Oh! We also have a plastic doctor kit. And Mr. Potato Heads. Hmmm...a glow worm (gift) that the kids love.

But we, too, have definitely loosened our standards, since I'm in the camp that a gift is a gift, usually carefully chosen, so we'll let our kids enjoy it unless it's truly obnoxious, dangerous, or absolutely doesn't fit in our house.

I allow plastic, but only for toys I get second hand. I figured I'm doing my part by re-using the toys, instead of letting them go to the landfill. I also have that doorway, and it's not as obnoxious as some of the other things I've seen. I mostly pared my son's toys down to things that don't make a noise on their own (he's noisy enough on his own)....

most of my family members don't share my aversion to plastic toys, and I feel rude telling them to only provide certain things as gifts. EVen when I've dropped hints (the baby might enjoy one of those cute walker-wagons from ikea...) they fall on deaf ears. We received the walker-mower toy with lights and sounds. Oh well, the child loves it. Also the fisher price plastic shape-sorting bins and little people toys have been well loved here. Not cute like expensive wooden toys, not waving the environmental flag either, but we are glad for anything that makes our kids happy.

We have a mix of wooden, fabric, rubber, metal, and plastic toys. My 21 month old son's favorite toy right now is a large basket of mini Play-Doh containers. He goes wild for them and finds all different ways to play with them (many times without even opening them and using the Play-Doh).

Our plastic toys are mostly used items that I've found at children's consignment sales. We have a few large plastic toys... a toddler slide, a Cozy Coupe, a sandbox. None of those bother me because they're pretty open ended and I found the least tacky looking ones I could ;)

We have enough durable, attractive toys made from natural materials that I don't mind some plastic mixed in. I display all his good looking toys and rotate the plastic stuff in and out.

How nice (for the adults) to only have pretty, atheistically pleasing wooden toys that make no noise! I, too, prefer them but who am I kidding? Sometimes those ugly monstrosities are the kids' favorite things. And if it's fun, encourages role play, or just keeps them occupied for a little bit -- sign me up.

My kids love those plastic life-like garbage trucks (Bruder has some cool ones). They also LOVE their Plasma-car. When they were babies, their favorite toy was the LeapFrog Musical Table.

Those wooden elephants are fantastic. We had a couple ugly plastic things at our house when my daughter was a baby (the exersaucer and some leapfrog music table thing). Sure, she played with them- but she would've been content without. Now she's 5 and has nothing gaudy or electronic. The only plastic she has is the Schleich animals. She is very content with a suitcase full of dress-up, some art supplies, her stuffed animals, Schleich animals, Lincoln Logs, and books. The Asceticism for Aesthetics experiment has yielded a wildly creative kid who can turn sticks and stones into fairy houses and occupy herself with anything she finds. Not trying to knock those who do kid clutter, I'm just saying if you don't want to, you really don't have to. Kids are great at finding ways to have fun.

I agree - how nice for the adults to have only these pretty asthetically pleasing wooden toys! Seriously? We have a multitude of beautiful toys but lots of plastic ones as well. I try hard at times to buy things we'll both be happiest with - ie. hundreds for a Land of Nod kitchen over some plastic monstrosity BUT some of the favorite toys will always be some musical plastic thing and again if it encourages learning, open ended play and they love it who am I to not allow that.

We've gotten those musical plastic battery-operated toys in the past, and I find the sound quality on them awful. It is hard to hear what is going on, and the noise is just stressful. So yeah, we've managed to pretty much keep them out of our lives.

I find the best thing to encourage creative play are costumes... the single best thing I ever bought was an elephant costume at the grocery store for $7 -- it was on clearance on October 31st (still before the trick or treating). The hours and hours of play over the years for both my kids... so I am on the hunt for costumes and open-ended toys.

We have a tad more plastic than you Daleth, but I agree with you wholeheartedly.

My daughter was gifted a plastic, electronic keyboard several years ago. I hate that toy with a passion, but she - and now her brother - LOVE it. They play with it almost every day, and I can't bring myself to take away something that brings them so much happiness.

I told my family no more gifts that are plastic, make noise or move. I feel inundated with this stuff..So what did my mom get my kids for Christmas? A Surfer Girl ride on car thing..Probably the grand-daddy of all things that are plastic, moves and makes noise. Not practical, I have no place to store it, since we have a carport not a garage. Ahhh, gotta love grandparents!

We have definitely eased up a lot. We have lovely wooden and cloth toys but also a fair amount of plastic (pretty much all second hand or gifts). But to be fair, not all plastic toys are ugly. My son's favourite toy of all are Gowi stacking/nesting cups which aren't noisy or ugly, Edushape sensory balls which are his favourite ones, and he also loves his IKEA Rusig rocker which also fits in with the aesthetic of his room. We have had some monstrosities, including his exersaucer which was really handy and we could deal with for the handful of months it was around and we have an older model toy piano-like xylophone which he also loves but while ugly is actually note perfect and sounds lovely! We also borrow some pretty hideous plastic toys from our community toy library, but at least those don't stay around too long!

http://www.playvaluetoys.com/products/Gowi-00591.html#

I suspect most of us could write volumes on the balance between parent-preference and child-preference toys. My latest balancing effort is, toys that are tiny versions of real plastic, powered tools are an easy 'yes' - vacuum and power drill, sure! I'm tolerant of gifts, and respectful these days of what my child loves.

Oh, wood toys, we hardly knew ye!

I agree with another commenter about costumes, and not even full costumes are necessary, really. Simple props will do, too. I once bought a few simple animal masks from Target's dollar section, and they were a hit!

yep. that's a perennial favorite in our house, too. even older kids, 6, 7, 8 and up love to play with it when they come over.

I think the thing about the plastic toys is that they tend to be brightly coloured. Often the "stylish" wooden toys are plain and not very exciting to a child's eyes. It's not that they prefer plastic to wooden toys, they just enjoy bright colours.

Yay! How great to stumble on this post, as I just purchased this for my 9-month-old for Christmas! :)

I agree with angorian: woorden toys often are beautiful to our eyes, not our children's. I compromise by buying brightly colored wooden toys whenever I think my little guy need a new toy. I also plan on buying tons of Duplo and Lego. I don't care if they are plastic toys, they are just the best toys ever !
More than the plastic vs wood issue, I think that the number of toys children have is a real issue. I find that my 9 months old boy doesn't need tons of toys... but when I visit my friends, I feel very alone and minimalist...

So far I have purchased all our plastic toys second hand as well. My 10 month old used her Leapfrog table daily, as well as her Playskool Walker/Ride-on. I don't feel guilty because I also feel I'm reusing and they are so cheap that I'm able to save $$ for buying the more expensive toys I'd like to get for her :-) I also figure I'll resell them (if they are in decent shape) when she stops using them, so someone else will be able to reuse them. Another thing, I don't believe it's necessary for kids to have tons of toys, but rather to have access to toys or objects that allow for creative play whether they are homemade, store bought plastic or wood...