Should baby toys be gender stereotyped?

There has been much debate in the media at the moment about the proliferation of pink in girls toys. Pressure groups have been set up to try to force the industry to consider their (over) use of pink for girls toys.

As a wholesaler of fairtrade knitted and crochet toys Best Years have seen various fashions come and go, but pink has always been the main colour for girls' toys.

In the same way that it was once said that you couldn't get sacked for buying IBM it was always a safe bet to put a girls toy in to pink irrespective of the age of child it was designed for.

This is slightly bewildering when you take in to account the age at which babies develop their senses.

In the first couple of months a baby has a keen sense of touch but sight has not yet developed properly. A textured toy in contrasting colours would be a good toy for this age. The Pebble crochet ball rattles would be great for this early age.

During the babies' 4th month they will start to be able to distinguish shades of colours so red and orange will start to be 2 colours rather than just one. They will also start putting anything and everything they can in to their mouths so toys should be large enough not to be swallowed. They should also have noises associated with them for play value. Cotton toys are perfect for this age as they are machine washable. Always an asset when a toy has been thoroughly chewed on! 

By 6 months a babies sense of sight has developed to the point to where they may be able to recognise pink as before this age it would have been too subtle a colour to distinguish from other reddish shades. So finally children begin to recognise the colours which have been allocated to them since birth. But it is thought that it is not until they are 2 years old that the kids themselves start to have a preference for either pink or blue.

But if babies do not recognise pink are there any differences between the way children play with toys? Research has shown that boys do indeed prefer cars and balls and girls prefer dolls. This has been re-inforced by watching the play of monkeys where the male and female monkeys chose to play with gender typical toys. However while children prefer these toys it is not to the exclusion of all others. Most children like to role play and this does not have to be gender stereo typed. Whilst their minds are still so receptive it seems a shame to coral them only in to certain play

Best Years wholesale only those toys which we believe to be well designed and gorgeous. We do not believe that it is our right to dictate to retailers which toys they should be selling to their customers, but we do want to offer a wide range of toys which are suitable for both boys and girls And while we have some wonderful pink toys we also have a wide range of toys which are suitable for everybody.

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