30 Best Toys for 18-Month-Old Toddlers Who Are Super Playful
Find their favorite characters, educational toys, and award-winning favorites.
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When kids are young, even six months makes a huge difference. Toys that are perfect for babies at their first birthday may be too simple for 18-month-olds, who may still be too young for toys aimed at ages 2 and up. That makes it tough to buy gifts for toddlers this age, but it's possible to find ones that are just right.
Our Top Picks:
- Bestseller: LEGO DUPLO Classic Brick Box
- For Active Toddlers: Delta Children 7-Piece Foam Fortress
- To Cuddle: GUND Bluey Plush
- First Art Set: Crayola Easy-Clean Fingerpaint
The Good Housekeeping Institute tests toys with kids year-round, getting feedback from parents about which ones kept their toddlers' attention and which were just left in a corner. To their recommendations, we added some editor's picks and trendy newcomers with their favorite characters to come up with a list of the best toys and gifts for 18-month-old toddlers. These hit the developmental sweet spot—and are really fun!
Best Deal
Congrats! At 18 months your toddler can enter the LEGO universe through DUPLO, the line of chunky bricks made for small hands. The box of 65 pieces includes two DUPLO figures, flowers, and a car, plus a rainbow of building bricks.
Delta Children 7-Piece Foam Fortress
Delta Children 7-Piece Foam Fortress
Giant foam blocks can be a castle, a stage, a tumbling mat, or a resting place for your rambunctious toddler. Ages 18 months+
Kids will love this because, well, it's Bluey—and, at 13 inches, it's a lot to hug. Parents can appreciate that GUND says it's made from 100% recycled materials. And yes, you can also get a Bingo. Ages 0+
Learning Resources Counting Crayons
Learning Resources Counting Crayons
Toddlers like to focus on sorting things and putting one object into another. With this, they practice counting, matching colors, and identifying pictures as they sort 25 double-sided coins into five crayon-shaped containers. “This is the longest a toy has held my daughter’s attention," a parent of a 17-month-old told us. "She loves problem-solving and trying to get the coin in the slot.” Ages 18 months+
RELATED: Baby & Toddler Toys That Help Little Ones Learn Through Play
This ingenious play set lets adults squeeze finger paint onto a paper, and then lock it into a board with a flexible covering on top. Toddlers can still make their masterpieces by smushing the paint around, but the covering keeps paint from getting on their hands—and all over your furniture and walls. After the masterpiece is complete, the container and lid can go in the dishwasher. Ages 1+
‘Windows’ Board Book
‘Windows’ Board Book
In this book, 10 die-cut pages follow the path of a little girl as she travels through different fantastical windows before settling down for the night. My 1-year-old’s favorite pages were the ones that contained the cars,” said one mom. “The concept for the book was unique and creative.” Ages 0 to 3
In true Ms. Rachel fashion, this stacking set comes with a lot of learning opportunities. The three stackable houses each have a letter and a color. Inside each one, there are two surprises that also match the color and the letter—a red apple for A, for example, a blue bird for B, a green crocodile for C, and so on. Kids can work on their sorting, color matching, stacking, and letter sounds all at the same time! Ages 18 months+
A longtime favorite of the toy experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute, this happy hedgehog encourages toddlers to improve their fine motor coordination as they place the spikes into the holes. They can also practice their color recognition and counting skills, too. Plus, parents love that the spikes can be neatly stored inside. Ages 18 months+
Toddlers love to play with pretend food! This set is different from a kitchen set: Kids play picnic, taking their toy hot dogs, hamburgers, cheese, and more out of the wheeled picnic basket to make a spread on the floor. "My daughter invented funny food combinations for us to try, which was adorable,” a parent told us. Ages 18 months+
Train enthusiasts will thrill to learn that Brio battery-powered trains have been taken down to toddler size. This set comes with 25 pieces—including tracks, supports, a tunnel and more—and one AA battery will send the engine chugging around the track. As the kids get older, these pieces are compatible with other Brio sets. Ages 18 months+; one AA battery required
This toy encourages kids to dance along with Elmo, so it's great when they have energy they need to get out. Elmo leads toddlers through the Hokey Pokey, or can just play freeze dance. It also speaks in English and Spanish. “[My 2-year-old] wants to play with it pretty constantly!” one parent tester said. Ages 18 months+; four AA batteries included
Each page of this interactive book features animals from a different habitat, and then the book teaches kids animal names, offers fun facts and sings songs in both English and Spanish. Good Housekeeping Institute parent testers loved showing their kids the photos of the different animals. Ages 18 months+; two AA batteries required
Playskool Sit ‘n Spin
Playskool Sit ‘n Spin
Get them using their arm muscles and working on their motor coordination with this classic spinning toy. One parent tester reported that their toddler would happily spin and spin for up to 10 minutes at a time. Ages 18 months+
Toddlers can practice their ABCs and learn about the world around them with this environment-themed set of flash card. They come on a ring, so it's easy to take them on the go. Ages 1+
Fans of cars and kids who love to build will get a kick out of this one: A battery-operated toy drill makes it so kids can completely disassemble this one, and then put it back together again. Parents will love how it comes in those iconic John Deere colors. Ages 18 months+; two AA batteries required
Kids can have all the fun of pretend cooking without devoting a huge section of a room to a play kitchen. The knobs on the play stove really click! In addition to the stove, the set comes with a pot, a pan, a lid, a spatula, and a spoon, and when they're not in use they store in a cubby in the back of the stove. Ages 18 months+
Kids can try to build tall towers with these extra-large blocks, which come in a big set of 80 blocks in 10 different shapes. Amazon users say the set is a great value for the money, and it also comes in a set of pink and purple hues. Ages 1+
There are so many ways to play with this cart: For starters, it works as a regular push toy, and kids can imagine themselves toting it up and down the grocery aisles. (It even has a coffee cup for verisimilitude.) It's also a shape sorter, and kids can take the time to match up the right wooden food pieces with the right-shaped holes in the side of the cart. But those food pieces can also be used for two different chunky puzzles, one of which also is a color-matching activity. When playtime is over, everything stores in the cart. Ages 1+
This racetrack can be set up in four different ways, from configurations made for head-to-head races to zig-zag tracks to super ramps and more. In addition, there are three "SmartPoint" spots that elicit specific sounds, including first words, feelings about stunts and songs. If kids press the windshield of the stunt car, they'll get even more sounds. Ages 18 months+; two AAA batteries required
If you've ever envisioned the toddler in your life zooming down a European village's cobblestoned street on a Vespa, well, this is the next best thing. Kids push it with their own feet, so they work on their motor coordination and balance, but it's got four wheels to help with stability. There's even a seat in the back for a beloved doll or stuffed animal. It comes in aqua, pink, or white. Ages 18 months+
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
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