Christmas gifts for a 2 year old?

[sherry7]

I know that a lot of us here have toddlers. I'm stumped on gift ideas for my 2 1/2 year old DD. In a perfect world where money grew on trees, I'd get her an iPad so I could use mine in peace without her wanting it. But, isn't exactly budget friendly. What are you getting your toddler for Christmas, Hannukah, or whatever you celebrate?

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

My little cousin just turned 2 and she got things like giant Legos, a little wagon, one of those sticks with a stuffed horse head, all seemed to go over well.
My DD will be 11months for Christmas she'll prolly enjoy the box and paper more than the gift, but were so excited about our first Christmas where it won't be just the wife and I.

 

[tnd]

My daughter is going to be 20 months at Hanukkah this year. We are looking at things like Duplo Legos, Fisher Price Little People sets, stuffed animals, books, and a toy shopping cart. We have not bought anything yet except one Hanukkah book and a small set of Duplo Zoo Legos.

You could also look for a toy kitchen. We have one that my son has outgrown which my daughter uses, and loves.

 

[worm761]

DD will be 3 this year but last year she loved her Little People Zoo Talkers stuff. Was the biggest hit of Christmas.

 

[Elleshoodat]

I know that a lot of us here have toddlers. I'm stumped on gift ideas for my 2 1/2 year old DD. In a perfect world where money grew on trees, I'd get her an iPad so I could use mine in peace without her wanting it. But, isn't exactly budget friendly. What are you getting your toddler for Christmas, Hannukah, or whatever you celebrate?

DS turns 2 a week from today, and we aren't buying "big" gifts for his birthday or Christmas. He plays with toys for a few days and then loses interest, so until his attention span grows, we buy him a toy and a couple of books (he *loves* to read and be read to) and put a chunk of money into his college savings account.

I was contemplating a tablet not long ago (DS loves the iPad, too), and there are a few child-friendly options if you're interested. My frontrunners were the Tabeo and the Nabi. I actually found out about them here on the DIS!

 

[LJSquishy]

One of my nieces is 2 1/2 and she absolutely LOVES the Little People Zoo Talkers also. Her parents have slowly built up a collection of the animals. She only has one of the playsets for them, the Animal Sounds Zoo Playset. They don't go overboard and buy tons of toys so what she does have, she uses.

When she was 1 1/2 I bought her a Weebles playset and she really loves that also. It was a little treehouse with a slide. It has a crank that will "carry" the Weebles up a ramp like an escalator and then they will slide down the slide and it makes sounds & plays a song when they go down the slide. She still plays with that all of the time.

A baby doll would be a great idea also, and you can get a little doll stroller for it. Most little girls that age start to enjoy dolls and feed them and push them around.

My niece also loves all sorts of artsy things so I got her the Aquadoodle Color. I think she probably uses it a lot as her parents keep it out on the floor for her to use. I think if she didn't use it much they would put it away. She also loves to paint, color, use stickers, etc.

 

[adventure_woman]

My DD is almost 2 1/2. One of the things I have gotten her is a Doc McStuffins play set from the Disney Store. She LOVES that show! Other things that she loves right now (she has everything because of her big sister) - doll stroller, tea set, her doctor set, legos, puzzles.

 

[2BigKIdz]

My son will also be 2 1/2 at Christmas and we don't have any idea yet what to get him so I am interested to hear what others are planning as well. He also likes to play on my tablet so maybe one of the child friendly ones a pp mentioned would be the way to go. He is very active so we have been contemplating toys for his play room but nothing really holds his interest for very long. I told my husband we need to get him a treadmill so he can run on it for 2 hours each day during the winter to burn off some energy

 

[BubMunkeyBles]

Little People castle or Leappad.

 

[2TxAgs]

At that age, my kids loved: blocks, puzzles, pushable grocery cart with all the play food, bigwheel, pots/pans/kitchen utensils to 'be in a band', a big cardboard house (now they make them as castles, firestations, etc.) They served us from their play kitchen almost every day for a year!

After Halloween, you can get costumes for cheap - firemen, doctors, ballerinas, etc. Buy a small apron and chef's hat and some wooden spools, plastic bowls, etc.

Paintbrushes of different sizes, along with watercolors. A supervised activity, but good for fine motor skills. Sidewalk chalk.

Finger puppets and the story books to go along with them (we had 3 Little Pigs as well as Goldilocks and the 3 Bears)

Have a stroll thru the kids section of Toys R Us or look up some online toy retailers and you'll find lots of creative ideas.

 

[FeatureFoil]

Wagon
Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere chair if she does not have one.
Doll Stroller
Play Kitchen
Shopping Cart
Melissa and Doug Cutting Food (gets used almost daily here!)
Tea party set
Tent playhouse thing.
Any kind of balls
Books - My two year old loves:

• The Napping House
• Fancy Nancy
• Pinkalicious
• Any Sandra Boynton
• The "How does a dinosaur..." series.
• My first seek and finds - I get them at Kohls

 

[IllinoisMommy]

My DD loved Little People and AquaDoodle (still plays with it at age 4). I would also suggest the LeapFrog Violet stuffed dog (about $20). You can program it with your child's name and favorite color, animal and food. It sings a little song about your child, you can also program your choice of sleepy tunes and more playful tunes. Was tucked away for awhile and DD is in love with it again- you press the legs to make it play songs or do things, and there is a switch to turn off the noise so when she wants to sleep with it I just turn it off (cuz she would play with it all night and not go to sleep )

You can't go wrong with any building type toys (MegaBlocks, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs)- DD is using ones that were bought 10 years ago for my olders son.

 

[iheartwalt]

Our son just turned two and some faves are:
Play kitchen (we found a good one on Amazon with free ahipping but Sams Club does have a cute girly one out for Christmas now)

Shopping cart (our son has the Melissa and Doug one and I am very impressed with the quality...it was his favorite birthday gift this year)

PB Kids Anywhere Chair (we went with ordering from uglysofa.com and love the chair and can't believe the great deal we got...if you do think about this make sure to like them of FB as they have coupon codes a few times a month that make it even cheaper)

V-tech Innotab (he loves this and I love that you can use an SD card and play movies on it; perfect for our plane ride to Disney)

Little Tikes slide, climber thingy (our son has a castle one in his room and he plays with it daily)

Step 2 Up and Down Roller Coaster (he got this for his first birthday and hated it but we brought it out again at 18 months and now he loves it. We only bring it out like two weekends a month to keep it special but he adores it)

 

[sherry7]

Thanks for the ideas everyone! I'm a little embarrassed to admit that she already has 75% of the things posted here. I guess I tend to buy her too many toys, but many of them came from children's consignment sales for very cheap.

I think I'm going to be kind of low key this Christmas, and not overdo it on the gifts. She still has stuff from last Christmas that she has barely played with.

 

[ktrask]

My daughter is turning 4 in December, and when she was 2 we really didn't do much for Christmas. We knew family would be giving her things, and she had just gotten gifts for her birthday.

Anything building blocks is good. We got her a table and couple of chairs from Ikea. A nice sturdy plastic that has lasted well. It's her own activity/snack table.

An easel to draw on. Some have chalkboards on one side and a paper/dry erase on the other.

Puzzles are great to start with too. They are a wonderful activity to work on with your toddler.

Honestly, the dollar store was a great place at Christmas to find toddler gifts. We didn't end up spending much at all, and then if she didn't like it, or just used it all up we didn't feel like we had broken the bank.

 

[la79al]

Thanks for the ideas everyone! I'm a little embarrassed to admit that she already has 75% of the things posted here. I guess I tend to buy her too many toys, but many of them came from children's consignment sales for very cheap.

I think I'm going to be kind of low key this Christmas, and not overdo it on the gifts. She still has stuff from last Christmas that she has barely played with.

I know what you mean! We have about 90% of the suggestions in this thread. DD2 is girl #3 in this house and DD4 was the first grandchild for my parents. I would go low key this year except DD4 is getting to the age where she is outgrowing preschool toys so I already have about 15 little things for her and um, 2 for DD2, What I am planning on doing though is replacing and replenishing. Bath stuff is used constantly in this house, we are finally almost out of Playdoh, our magnadoodle has gotten stepped on one too many times and apparently the tips of color wonder markers are very tasty to 18 month olds. Other than that, DD actually loves clothes so although we don't really need them, I know she would like getting them. The 1 toy I might get is the FP snap n style dolls. She got one for her birthday and plays with it off and on so I'm thinking about getting a baby or dog for her too.

 

[dizluvah]

My daughter just turned 2 last week and some of her favorite gifts included:

Melissa and Doug Sticker books - the reusable/removable one is the BEST! Has already provided hours of fun for my DD.
Mr. Potato head, Vtech phone, Disney princess "laptop", cozy coupe, my little ponies, minnie mouse bowtique sets and fisher price doodle pro

For Christmas I picked up a little tykes vanity at a yardsale, bought the Little People Disney princess castle and all the add-ons, Melissa and Doug Mailbox with various sized letters and Little People Noah's Ark

 

[CluelessDisFan]

We got our 2 1/2 YO the leap pad 2 a couple of months ago. She loves it! It keeps her off my phone as well. It's $99 and what it starts out with is pretty good. We downloaded Letter factory for free to it and it's the best, for teaching letter sounds. We also bought her Jake and the neverland pirates game she loves that.

 

[ktlm]

Thanks for the ideas everyone! I'm a little embarrassed to admit that she already has 75% of the things posted here. I guess I tend to buy her too many toys, but many of them came from children's consignment sales for very cheap.

I think I'm going to be kind of low key this Christmas, and not overdo it on the gifts. She still has stuff from last Christmas that she has barely played with.

I can relate. My DD(6) is an only child, and an only grandchild on one side with an overindulgent grandmother with nothing better to do than spoil her! We had to buy a bigger house to fit the toys!

If you want an Ipad, but don't want to spend the money, you might want to look into a TABEO at Toys R US. It is $150, but it basically is an IPAD(well technically it is a Droid) for kids. I know of several people who are getting it for their 3 year old IPAD addicted kids! DD is getting one for Christmas and we just got it in the mail and took it out of the box this morning to make sure it works. We were pretty impressed with it. It comes pre-loaded with over 50 popular apps loaded onto it (things like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope- there is a full list on the TRU website) and you can get more. There are over 7000 apps available on the Tabeo App store. It also has a camera (photo and video) and wifi access to the internet with parental controls you can set to stop or limit that, or require your approval before any website is accesses. You can also buy car adaptors, so you don't have to worry about running out of power on a long car trip.

DD got the leappad last year for christmas and loves it, but considering the leappad 2 is $100 and then the games are separate at $20 to $25 each, the Tabeo seems to give you a lot more for your money. I will say that the leappad is another good choice though.

I assume your DD already has a play kitchen? If not, DD got that for her 2nd birthday, and that is something at age 6 that she still plays with. The other thing from that age that still gets a lot of use is the kid sized table and chairs- DD has basically outgrown them, but her dolls haven't and they have lots of tea parties and attend lots of restaurants on them. I believe that she got that for Christmas from Santa with a new doll sitting at it and new dishes on it.

DD actually discovered American Girl when she was 2 (thanks to our niece being hooked on it and DD seeing a catalog). She got her first doll from Santa at age 2 years 10 months, with the reason that she had been telling us for 6 months that Santa was bringing her that doll (Felicity) and it was the No. 1 must have, nothing else will do, thing on her Christmas list. It was a huge hit-still is 4 years later. Just be aware that one you start AG, you can never go back!

If all else fails, just walk her through a toy store or toy department. I bet she is old enough to give you a good idea of what she wants!

 

[angela25]

I know that a lot of us here have toddlers. I'm stumped on gift ideas for my 2 1/2 year old DD. In a perfect world where money grew on trees, I'd get her an iPad so I could use mine in peace without her wanting it. But, isn't exactly budget friendly. What are you getting your toddler for Christmas, Hannukah, or whatever you celebrate?

We are getting our DD (will be 2 the begining of FEB) a minnie mouse kitchen, a little people disney princess castle, a new stroller for her baby, probably some bath toys, more babydolls, a barbie of her own so her sister doesnt get mad when she plays with hers & whatever other good deals I can score on black friday!