Buying toys for toddlers is so hit and miss. You find what you think is the perfect toy, only to have them play with it for 5 minutes and not want to touch it again. They then are happy playing with a cardboard box for hours. Go figure! That’s why borrowing toys is a brilliant idea.
We have an AMAZING service near us in Melbourne, Australia for young kids. It’s worth you googling if there’s one in your community for you to access. It’s a toy library for kids under 7 years of age. It works like a book library, just with toys.
How borrowing toys from the Toy Library works:
- You pay $75 annually to be a member. For ours, you also need to volunteer 8 hours a year. This involves doing a few shifts at the Toy Library checking toys in and out for other parents.
- The toys are categorised by age (e.g. under 12 months, 1-3 years etc) as well as sorted into games, puzzles, dress ups, other toys.
- You then choose a few toys to borrow and have them for about 3 weeks. If your kids don’t like the toys you’ve borrowed, you simply take them back and borrow other ones.
- At our Toy Library, you can also pay to borrow extra toys at any time. When we had our kids’ birthday parties at home, we would borrow extra toys for the party weekend.
Our Toy Library gave our kids access to so many different types of toys that they could experiment with. It also meant we hardly ever had to focus on buying toys.
I realise not every community is lucky enough to have a Toy Library. It’s something though that I never would have known about unless a friend told me about it. So, take a minute to google if there’s one in your area.
Based on how much my kids got out of our Toy Library, I hope there’s one near you!
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The best $75 I spent on borrowing toys when my kids were little
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