Four Toys to Encourage Sibling Play

With kids of different ages and abilities (in our case, a 4 year old girl and a 1 year old boy), it can be difficult to get them to play together happily. While we definitely have lots of independent play, family play time, or man on man defense, we also have been trying to encourage our kids to play together without us.

I think that having Harlyn and Maverick play together without much intervention from us has helped them become better at sharing, communicating, and just having fun together, despite Maverick not really walking or talking yet!! Of course we are right there keeping an eye out for potential fights, but we try to give them some space to work out the details by themselves.

So, here are our family’s picks for sibling play time!

1. A play kitchen. We bought this for Harlyn years ago, and before Maverick came along, it had been a bit neglected. But a few months ago, once Maverick got really mobile and could stand/cruise, the kids started playing kitchen together. It’s so cute! Usually they like to pretend it’s a restaurant or bakery. ☺ Maverick doesn’t even care that Harlyn calls the shots, he just loves that he can gnaw on the food.

2. Dinosaurs.  For as much as Harlyn loves “girl stuff” she also loves to play dinos, cars, superheroes, etc. So we took an old bin of dinosaur stuff from my dad’s basement and brought it over for the kids to play with. Mav can even make dinosaur ROAR noises! Since our tub of dinos is a hand-me-down, we’re missing many pieces, but we have the old version of THIS.

3. Balls. We have this blue soccer ball that both Harlyn and Maverick love. They will play catch or H will kick the ball. Or honestly, sometimes Harlyn just runs around the house with the ball and laughs while Mav crawls around like a mad man trying to catch her. 😉 I can’t wait for the day that Maverick runs…I don’t think Harlyn will be laughing then!!

4. Farm play set. For Maverick’s birthday, our friends got him a cute farm set and a tractor. I think it’s safe to say that Harlyn likes it even more than Mav! But it’s just so sweet when she starts to play with the farm and Maverick heads on over to join in. I can’t wait for when Mav learns his animal sounds!! For now, we let the tractor (or big sis) make the animal noises!!  THIS is the adorable farm. And the tractor is HERE.

What do your kids love to play with together?

Please note: Any links in this post are just me pointing you to what we enjoy—I do NOT make money from these links!!