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Is it possible for children to have too many toys? I think that there probably is a case against children having too many toys. I grew up with four younger brothers (about two years between every one of us) and our fairly large communal bedroom was lined on two walls with shelving from floor to ceiling with toys and every Christmas there were sacks full of even more playthings that we did not have any more space for.

I was the oldest, so you would think that I could pass my baby toys down the line once I had no use for them. That worked while my brothers were actually babies, but as their consciousness began to expand they liked to play with what I was playing with and so all the toys that I used from, say three to eight years of age were ignored by my brothers as they leap-frogged past those years and went straight to year eight and nine with me.

But we never got rid of those five years worth of overlooked toys or any other toys either. This would have been in the Fifties and Sixties and I do not think that recycling was quite the buzz word back then that it is nowadays.

My parents did not throw them out, we only squirreled them away on the top shelves, which we could not reach anyway. I assume that after sitting up there for ten years they were eventually thrown away but I do not know as I had already left home by then.

The point is that those redundant toys were not doing anyone in our family any good and they were taking up space. It would have been far better to have given them away or not even to have bought some of them in the first place.

We always had to have ‘one each’ so that there would be less squabbling. So, we had items like five plastic trumpets, five tin drums, five plastic guns, five of this and five of that and we hardly ever used them after Christmas Day. We liked to play together at board games like Monopoly, Risk and cards and although I, being the oldest, won nine times out of ten, my brothers never seemed to care.

We also had a train set, Scalectrix and a big box of Lego. We would spend all weekend creating various scenarios with combinations of the train set, a roadway and Lego houses and Lego railway platforms. OK, these three toys were probably expensive, but they were quality, versatile, could be used in combination and, in a way, were educational. These were the toys that we kept on the bottom shelves.

What I am saying is that more is not always better and in the case of toys, more can be merely a waste of money. Instead of all that junk on the top shelves, which was often donated by aunties and uncles by the way, it would have been better to buy us a new bridge for the railway set or a new chicane for the Scalectrix or another box of building blocks for our Lego collection.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now concerned with Lego Keyrings. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Lego UK.

If you are going to be caring for children either your own or other people’s, you will naturally need some equipment. Your training will have taught you what you are required to have by law, things such as safety equipment, cots, high-seats and strollers, but you will also need some toys. Which ones though, there are so such a lot and they are not cheap either?

Well, the first thing to take into account is the age group of the children that you will have under your supervision. I am sure that your training will have already taught you that babies have different requirements from toddlers and so on up the age scale. Babies cannot get about (or not much) so they have to have their playthings near at hand.

Having said that, babies are not even very dexterous with their hands. They just seem to want to stuff items into their mouths with them, so the safest alternatives for babies are visually and aurally stimulating toys that will neither choke nor poison them. Revolving mobiles, colourful rattles, an attractive blanket, wallpaper with pictures of animals like Beatrix Potters menagerie of rabbits, foxes and ducks.

It is almost certainly better if you do not supply any toys that are going to be sucked and then passed around other children for fear of cross-infection. Let their parents provide the babies’ own cuddly toys and teddy bears et cetera. You may like to advise parents not to purchase babies’ toys which come apart easily or have buttons or loose eyes because of the risk of choking.

In the next age bracket, the struggling toddler, kids are starting to become inquisitive and are ‘into everything’. They still like to put everything in their mouths though, so the same warnings apply as before, but the toys can and should be more challenging. Books with a thin storyline and big pictures are fairly useful as are fish tanks that are safely out of reach. Children love to watch a busy fish tank and it is better than TV.

Building blocks and even the babies’ variety of Lego can be introduced at this age although the toddlers are still a little young for them. Toddlers will begin to become attached to favourite toys and want to carry them around with them at this age, so soft balls, dolls, rattles, and educational toys appropriate to the age group are apposite.

After about eighteen months, educational toys like blocks and Lego (or Duplo) are even more important, so are books, but children of this age like to bang things and create a noise as well. A plinky-plonky instrument like a toy xylophone or a plastic piano are good for fulfilling these needs.

After about two years of age, children start to play with other children and Wendy Houses and toy tea sets are useful for encouraging this. They will also like to move about and drive toy cars and tricycles. Children must be encouraged to play in a safe outdoor environment now as well, if the weather is appropriate. Low-level swings and slides are fun as is a sand pit, if you can stop the local cats from using it as a public lavatory.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with Lego Keyrings. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Lego UK.