ChildTrek Blog

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

Shape Sorters - Important Early Learning Toy
Shape sorters are important educational toys. They help strengthen your child’s fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, develop problem-solving skills, encourage color recognition, and begin to help your toddler understand cause and effect. It’s one of the best early learning toys around.

Plan Toys Shape & Sort It Out: Classic, Effective
If you are around children, you know that shape sorters can be very challenging for toddlers. Some are too gimmicky and complicated.

Plan Toys hits it on the spot with its Shape & Sort It Out. In order to encourage success, Plan Toys stuck with three basic shapes and familiar colors (red, blue, green, yellow). In doing so, it promotes success and confidence through recognition and repetition. It is classically designed and comes with all you need to help your child develop important foundational skills. No frills, no gimmicks. Just a sturdy wooden box, a lid, six wooden shapes (2 of each: square, circle, triangle), and your child sorting things out. It worked when you were a kid, it will work just as well with your little one.

A few features that are worth noting: There are rounded cut-out handles on the sides to help with storage and portability. Unlike its soft counterparts, the wooden cut-out shapes have no give. So there’s no cheating by squeezing or stuffing in the pieces. If your child gets too frustrated, he can lift the lid and put the pieces in that way. This is completely normal and gives the sense of progress. Of course, your toddler will try sorting again and with each satisfying clunk will eventually figure things out.

Plan Toys Shape & Sort It Out is well built. It will withstand years of play and will be ready for the next child’s attempts.

Simply good.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

Natural & Wood Teethers
The best teething toys are made of natural materials like wood. Wood is naturally anti-bacterial. (That’s why there are wooden cutting boards.) So it is self-cleaning. Wood is hard and will help ease teeth in. But not all wood toys are ideal. The best wooden teething toys are either unfinished or lightly finished with beeswax, water-based stains, or other non-toxic paints. It’s best to gain the manufacturer statements to this effect. At ChildTrek, only toys that have met or exceeded safety standards are available.

Great Teething Toys
Consider the Infant Grabbing Toy Mah or Giraffe by Kathe Kruse. They are made out of non-porous beech wood, lightly finished with beeswax, and made using non-toxic dyes. There are no harmful chemicals to leach out while your baby gnaws on the hard wood. The wooden ring is extra large for easy handling by small hands. The lamb and the giraffe can be removed for machine or hand wash. And they are completely adorable!

The Grabbing Star Red or Blue also by Kathe Kruse has a wooden teething ring and interesting textures for early learning stimulation. A special feature is a velcro loop at one of the star ends so that it can be fastened as a stroller toy. This achieves a couple of things: the teether is always nearby and it doubles as a grabbing toy. Smart!

The Girali Rattle by Selecta, aside from being a practical teething toy, is uniquely beautiful. It is made of native woods from Germany and finished with beeswax and non-toxic paints - completely safe for your baby.

Also, it’s hard to beat the Cherry Rattle by Camden Rose. It is lightly finished with beeswax. Its contoured design makes for interesting tactile stimulation. Its gentle rattle is soothing. As a teether - it is naturally hard to facilitate teething. Watch as your baby gnaws on this beautiful toy for hours.

Cold and Soothing
One of my personal favorites for the summer are the organic teethers by miYim and Under the Nile. Take the Bunny, Elephant, or Bear teether. Dampen, not soak it. Put it in the freezer. Then let your baby gnaw on this cool toy to help soothe tender gums. Do the same for the Fruits or the Vegetables by Under the Nile. Besides gently soothing for your baby, you are teaching your baby to “eat” his or her fruits and veggies!

Vary Teethers
It’s best to keep a few different teethers around that have varying textures and hardness. Some teeth come in easier than others. The molars, for example, are especially hard on infants.

Check out ChildTrek’s selection of ideal teething toys.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

In June, you will find that more and more of ChildTrek’s natural toys will be “Temporarily Sold Out.” There are two very good reasons for this: 1) They are being sold (thank you!), and 2) they are not being restocked until we open ChildTrek’s first storefront on July 1. Let me explain why.

Limiting the Carbon Footprint of Moving Toys
ChildTrek currently has its inventory in a warehouse in Kansas City, Missouri. Now that ChildTrek is opening a storefront in Tacoma, the toys will be moved to Washington. This will centralize operations and ensure top-notch customer service.

Not surprisingly, such a move across six states will result in significant fuel emmissions. There’s a lot of toys. In order to limit the carbon footprint of ChildTrek’s move, the inventory in Kansas City is being sold down while we stock up in Tacoma. This will significantly reduce the use of gas and its impact to the atmosphere. I ask for your patience as ChildTrek transforms from virtual to reality.

More Natural Toys in July
On July 1, you will see a fully stocked store again. At that time, you will also see more new toy arrivals from new manufacturers that are in keeping with ChildTrek’s green living and worldwide prosperity philosophy.

Word of Mouse
My deep gratitude to all of you who are passing ChildTrek on to family and friends by word of mouse.  Thank you for your kind emails. It’s truly great to reach kindred spirits who are lining up their love of children and planet with their consumer behavior.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

From Virtual to Reality
ChildTrek will soon open a “real” store in Tacoma, Washington’s historic Freighthouse Square. In the next few weeks, I will chronicle the store’s transformation. For now, here are some before pictures. First thing: Goodbye to all that blue. Hello green!

Grand Opening
ChildTrek opens its doors on July 1 and holds its grand opening sometime after. ChildTrek is located just to the right of the Sound Transit ticket terminals and under what I fondly call “the little engine that could.” Go to ChildTrek.com to view a selection of high-quality, unique, natural toys for babies and toddlers.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

Thank You for Your Support!
Thank you to all of you who came to see us at the Green Power Baby Shower Expo in Seattle. It was a wonderful success! I can’t tell you enough how much Stacey and I enjoyed meeting you. We especially loved meeting the children! They are such an inspiration and reminded me why I started ChildTrek in the first place.

The Most Frequently Asked Question
You asked many child development related questions at the Expo. Let me share the most frequently asked one and recap my answer.

What kinds of toys do I give my baby who is 6 to 11 months old, sitting up or standing up, but not yet walking?

For the first few months, babies don’t do much. They sleep, pee, poop, and coo. Then one day, they add to their developmental repertoire by sitting up, crawling, rolling, and reaching out. Now what do you give them to play with?

Developmentally, babies can vary quite a bit. Since you see your infant everyday, you are the foremost expert at what your newborn is able to handle physically. So it’s good to start with your own knowledge of your baby. Nevertheless, here are some guidelines to keep in mind as you choose toys that are developmentally appropriate.

a) At this age, babies naturally want to grab and pull. It’s their way of interacting with their surrounding. The best grabbing or pulling toys are chunky and rounded so as to be easy for little, uncoordinated hands to handle. They have textures, sounds and visual feedback to give your baby important multi-sensory stimulation. Through these early multi-sensory experiences, your infant will begin to make sense of her immediate world. She will begin to synthesize information through repeat experiences and organize these in her developing brain. (This is smooth, rough, bumpy, crinkly; this makes this kind of sound, that kind of sound; this one has different colors (babies don’t actually understand colors; but varying contrasts help them differentiate one from another), etc.)

Be careful, however, from giving your child toys that are loud or over-stimulating. Keep it gentle and soothing. Babies are naturally disorganized. Their brains cannot handle information overload. And we don’t want to give them any reason to be upset (and lose the little sleep they give us in return), do we?

b) Rattles and teethers are also grabbing toys per se. However, if you are looking specifically to help your baby soothe tender gums choose ones that are made of unfinished, beeswax-finished, or non-toxic painted wood. Since wood is a natural anti-bacterial material, it is ideal for your infant. It is also safer.

With growing concerns over the possible harmful effects of phthalates - family of chemicals used to make plastic pliable - present in many children’s toys, it’s best to avoid plastic toys altogether. Choose only natural and wooden toys until there is conclusive evidence these chemicals do not disrupt hormonal development, among other things, in young children.

c) Towel dolls and stuffed animals are particularly good for babies and toddlers. They are soft, comforting, and designed to be easy to handle. As a regular companion, soft dolls and stuffed animals help young children to self soothe while in car rides, strollers, or just being a baby.

Note: Do not to put toys, pillows, blankets, or other objects in your baby’s crib. Childhood experts say that infants are safest when they sleep on their back and without things that may disrupt their breathing.

Upcoming Exhibits
We will let you know of other exhibits where ChildTrek will have a booth. If you are in the area, please do stop by. We would love to meet you and your family!

Thank you again for the for the opportunity to meet you at the Green Power Baby Shower Expo. We are also grateful that you chose natural baby, toddler, or preschooler toys from ChildTrek. We truly appreciate your business.