DarkFortney717
I've spent yesteryear 3+ years buying toys for my children. My daughter has near to 50 stuffed toys, together with my son who also offers an increasing collection. Not to mention, we've chock-full at least 7 or even more tubs filled with toys through the years.
Be it Christmas, birthdays, or Easter, the piles of stuffed toys keep growing. For this reason I'm fairly confident that I'm nearing expert Dad status with choosing "safe" stuffed animals and other toys for my kids. Allow me to explain what I search for and how you may also start feeling more confident with picking out stuffed toys for your own personel children.
Early on, I believed out that child warnings on toys are a bit silly, for me. Of course, everyone understands the choking hazards from extremely tiny pieces that come with some toys. However, you'll find stuffed toys that have a tag saying "Choking hazard, don't use without parental supervision". The toy itself may well be a stuffed bear, two arms, two legs, a head, nothing to accomplish, no moving parts - get the picture? My guess is that some group somewhere is covering any possible trouble with their product - avoiding lawsuits.
Is that this useful to parents? I'm not sure about you, however it does not help me whatsoever. If each and every toy warns of choking hazards, the notice becomes useless when you're choosing baby toys. How are parents designed to decide if all things have an alert onto it?
Believe in gut - that's my strategy. As a parent, we've ingrained making decisions skills that we often underestimate. Nowadays, pop-psychology and mainstreaming child-rearing has numerous parents questioning how they raise their kids. If you're questioning your parenting ability, my best advice may be the following. Remember that you are the product of parents. You was once a child. You survived your childhood due to parenting. In the process, you learned skills that may help you lift up your own children.
With that said, let's discuss plush or stuffed toys once more. Stuffed toys are largely safe in my opinion. My son sleeps with his Jedi bear that people had made at Build-a-Bear. My daughter sleeps with her 4 princesses. We've never had an inkling of the trouble with this arrangement.
Before I forget, I ought to also touch upon over-sized toys. Obviously common sense tells us that an over-sized toy inside your child's crib is really a bad idea. Again, seeing the risk in an over-sized plush inside your child's crib is something you figure out with your parental "gut". It doesn't have a genius or 5 paragraph long tag-warning to look for the danger having a stuffed animal that's 10 times your son or daughter's size.
Now go forward, make use of your parental gut, and trust your best judgement in making decisions for the child.
