Last updated: October 21, 2026
Have you been making a holiday gift list and checking it twice--or even a third time--and you’re still not sure where to start? Well, here’s a gift from Melissa & Doug!
We have pulled together a list of our favorite toys for babies and 1-year-olds, just in time for your holiday shopping. You’ll discover a variety of gifts that are sure to bring the fun, while also building up those essential early developmental skills.
Whether you’re shopping for Christmas, Hanukkah, or December birthdays, we have the best baby and 1-year-old gifts and toys for you to choose from!
If you'd like additional help finding the right toy for your child, visit the Melissa & Doug Holiday Gift Guide and let it do all the hard work for you.
Our Top Toys & Gifts for Babies and 1-Year-Olds
Farmers Market Tummy Time Roller Toy
Why it’s a great gift for babies & 1-year-olds: This soft, self-sticking fabric roller toy offers three ways to play, making it a versatile addition to your infant developmental toys. The five double-sided stuffed fabric panels can lay flat for tummy time engagement, acting as a soft baby book with multi-textured fabrics and sound elements for sensory play. One side features adorable, high-contrast black and white veggie characters, while the other displays sweet, colorful fruits to satisfy developing senses. The sweet character faces encourage interaction and focus.
Fun feature: As your baby grows, the panels fold up into a cylinder that rolls, promoting crawling and motor skill development.
Skills: Features five panels with high-contrast black and white vegetable characters on one side and sweet, colorful fruits on the other to support visual development in babies. The rolling cylinder design motivates babies to push and follow, helping to build gross motor skills, strengthen core muscles, and encourage movement in a fun, interactive way. The pull-and-peel self-stick fabric tabs and varied textures help develop fine motor skills and tactile awareness while your infant is engaged in focused tummy time play.
How to wow: Give your baby a great tummy time workout by pairing this Roller Toy with our Ocean Easy-Fold Play Gym for a boost to their gross and fine motor skills.
Ocean Waves Bounce Back Links
Why it’s a great gift for babies & 1-year-olds: Encourage key milestones with this set of three friendly ocean characters that make tummy time more engaging. Each toy features a special clip base that allows it to sit upright on a play mat. When your baby presses them down, they satisfyingly spring right back up, prompting up-and-down head movement and strengthening neck muscles. The whale, seal, and squid each feature multi-textured fabrics and sound elements, including crinkles and a mirror, to provide rich sensory feedback for curious infants.
Fun feature: This set includes a friendly whale with a crinkle texture and mirror, a seal with crinkle fins and tabs, and a squid with crinkle fins and soft tentacles for varied play.
Skills: With multi-textured fabrics, crinkle sounds, and other tactile elements like fins and tabs, these toys provide a rich experience for babies to explore with their hands and mouths. This set is specifically designed to make tummy time more enjoyable and productive, helping your baby build the strength needed for rolling over, sitting up, and crawling.
How to wow: If your little one goes gaga for undersea fun like our Ocean Links toy, give them a double dose of sea creature with our Ocean Tummy Time Triangle infant toy, another great way to inspire movement and help develop gross and fine motor ability.
Farmers Market 3-in-1 Activity Center
Why it’s a great gift for babies & 1-year-olds: This adjustable wooden activity center grows with your baby, transforming from a tummy time surface to an angled station or standing table. Features seven attached toys, includinga squeaking ladybug, a bead maze, a crinkle corn cob, and a push-pull silicone radish.
Fun feature: The design changes how the toys move at each stage, offering new ways to interact and learn.
Skills: Designed to strengthen core muscles, develop fine motor skills, and introduce cause-and-effect concepts through activities like pushing, pulling, spinning, and stacking.
How to wow: To keep the garden theme growing, pair partner the Activity Center with our Market Basket Fill & Spill–little ones love dumping things out and filling up the bag over and over to develop those fine motor skills.
Ocean Waves Press & Stack Seahorse
Why it’s a great gift for babies & 1-year-olds: Engage your little one with the press and stack seahorse toy, a unique twist on classic stacking toys. This set includes a friendly seahorse with a built-in bead rattle and three colorful sensory rings. Simply press the seahorse onto a ring and it picks it up, allowing your child to stack them in order. A bouncy mechanism provides gentle tactile feedback and makes a clicking sound, adding another layer of sensory discovery to the play. The toy is designed to fit little hands, making it easy for babies to grasp and maneuver.
Fun feature: The mixed materials, including plastic and fabric on the yellow starfish, coral clam, and green seaweed rings, offer a rich sensory experience.
Skills: This educational toy helps develop motor skills through repetitive play and tactile exploration.
How to wow: Keep the stacking fun going, plus add construction, matching, and early numbers learning fun too with our Match & Build Soft Blocks, a great way to help little ones develop grasping, reaching, C-grip strength, motor skills, and more.
Ms. Rachel Wooden Learning Blocks with Activity Cards
Why it’s a great gift for babies & 1-year-olds: Stack, roll, match, and learn with Melissa & Doug® Ms. Rachel™ Wooden Learning Blocks! Inspired by Ms. Rachel’s popular baby and toddler videos, this blocks and activity cards set is made with love to support learning for littles, and is packed in a sturdy box, for on-the-go play and easy cleanup.
Fun feature: Features 26 blocks that help kids identify letters, numbers, pictures, and colors.
Skills: Stimulates cognitive development that helps kids identify letters, numbers, pictures, and colors. Encourage language skills, turn-taking, and social skills. Blocks are great for boosting fine motor skills and self-esteem, as little hands grasp, build, and play.
How to wow: Pair Ms. Rachel’s Wooden Learning blocks with any of age-appropriate learning toys, or something similarly themed from our Ms. Rachel Learning Toy Collection!
Ocean Easy-Fold Play Gym
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: The Melissa & Doug Ocean Easy-Fold Play Gym with Quick-Close™ storage is thoughtfully designed to encourage babies to play and learn through multiple stages and ages! Sturdy, wide wooden arches are pre-assembled for easy set-up, and offer caregivers easy access to the baby. The arches stay secure on the comfy, reversible play mat with sensory ribbons and a crinkling peek-a-boo clam shell. Mat and toys are machine washable. Press the innovative Quick-Close™ button to unlock the frame and easily fold for storage or to take the play gym on the go! The included Play Guide illustrates the many ways the play gym supports the powerful role play has in brain development, physical well-being, and creating connections.
Fun feature: One side of the mat features high-contrast black-and-white graphics for early visual stimulation, and the other includes a full-color ocean scene to keep older babies engaged as vision develops. Attach the included soft, skill-supporting toys to the gym or play with them independently!
Skills: Encourages sensory stimulation, hand-eye coordination, gross and fine motor skills, and cognitive development.
How to wow: A perfect complimentary toy for our Ocean Play Gym is our Ocean Tummy Time Triangle, another soft play developmental toy that will stimulate baby's physical and cognitive development.
Ms. Rachel Wooden Jumbo Peg Puzzle
Why it’s a great gift for babies & 1-year-olds: Peek-a-boo, Ms. Rachel™ sees you! The four-piece Melissa & Doug® Ms. Rachel™ Wooden Peek-a-Boo Jumbo Peg Puzzle features extra thick and sturdy wooden pieces in different shapes, and jumbo pegs that are easy for small hands to grasp.
Fun feature: Bright colors and sweet illustrations of favorite Ms. Rachel characters, as well as a special peek-a-boo child-safe mirror, keep young ones actively engaged.
Skills: Encourages language, memory, spatial awareness, problem-solving skills, and more with this Melissa and Doug puzzle.
How to wow: Partner up this Ms. Rachel wooden peg puzzle with any of our age-appropriate learning toys, something similarly themed from our Ms. Rachel Learning Toy Collection, or another puzzle from our vast collection!
Ocean Tummy Time Triangle
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: Make baby’s tummy time extra special with this engaging, double-sided folding cloth triangle toy! The Tummy Time Triangle helps babies stay engaged and strengthen muscles during tummy play.
Fun feature: Three fold-out panels with adorable ocean-themed graphics and friendly characters lie flat or fold and connect into an upright pyramid. One side features high-contrast black and white graphics, great for important visual stimulation during baby’s first months. The other side includes colorful sea creatures with developmentally appropriate features.
Skills: Encourages gross motor development, visual and tactile stimulation, and interaction with caregivers.
How to wow: This Ocean Time Tummy Triangle pairs perfectly with the aforementioned Ocean Play Gym.
Wooden Work & Play Desktop Activity Board
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: Infants and toddlers will love playing with this wooden version of a laptop and desk just like grown-ups do!
Fun feature: Open the screen to reveal a peekaboo mirror to tap into babies’ fascination with faces.
Skills: Sensory, fine motor skills
How to wow: How does your kiddo commute to work? Have them take the GO Tots Roll & Ride Bus for fun pretend play!
K's Kids Pull-Back Vehicles Toy
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: Wheel them back to get new skills speeding ahead! The "rev up" mechanism inside each of these four cars and trucks makes it easy for babies and toddlers to get big acceleration with just a little input: Pull back one of the soft vehicles--then release to see it zoom off across the floor!
Fun feature: Get more "miles per gallon" with a variety of colors, shapes and sizes, illustrated characters, and everyday themes to inspire conversations, cognitive connections, and imaginative play!
Skills: Fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination; benefits large muscle groups and coordination, too.
How to wow: Give their vehicle toys something to race around, through, and into with our Match & Build Soft Blocks!
Flip Fish Baby Toy
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: With bright colors, bold facial features, and washable fabrics that include a variety of patterns and hidden pictures, this crinkling, squeaking, multi-textured soft toy is perfect for encouraging tummy time and fueling storytelling.
Fun feature: Features shatterproof mirror to engage baby's interest in faces and light
Skills: Sensory, fine motor skills
How to wow: If tactile, sensory fun delights your little one, consider getting them our Soft Activity Book - Itsy Bitsy Spider for crinkly, hands-on learning.
Wooden Shape Sorting Grocery Cart
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: This rolling cart is filled with exciting skill-building activities. With puzzle pieces to sort, a roller drum to spin, and plenty of fun accessories, kids can engage in imaginative play while practicing important skills.
Fun feature: Realistic coffee cup with removable lid
Skills: Fine and gross motor, problem-solving, sorting and sequencing, shape and color recognition
How to wow: Place a favorite stuffed animal friend in the cart for company!
Pineapple Soft Stacker
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: Kids can sort, squeeze, shake, and stack this happy little pineapple. It features soft, fabric-covered rings, a durable plastic texture ring, and a soft textured topper with crinkle leaves and silky smooth ribbons. It’s a sweet way for little ones to discover textures and sounds while practicing important skills.
Fun feature: Rattling, rocking base and post
Skills: Sensory development, problem-solving
How to wow: If your little one enjoys stacking a squishy pineapple, introduce them to their first plush friend with our Burrow Bunny Stuffed Animal.
Rollables Wooden Ocean Slide
Why it’s a great gift for babies and 1-year-olds: This sturdy, ocean-themed wooden slide includes 3 squeezable Rollables with chimes, a built-in bead maze, sea star and whale flipper to press, and a removable funnel. So many features to keep babies’ attention and inspire joyful discovery!
Fun feature: Adorable, diverse characters and variety of shapes and textures
Skills: Cause-and-effect, sensory and fine-motor, problem-solving
How to wow: Add other animal Rollables such as Safari Friends or Farm Friends
We hope all these gift ideas make your holidays even happier! If you're looking for more help in finding the right gift for your little one, visit the Gift Finder on our homepage.
Looking for more of the best Christmas and holiday gift and toy ideas for kids of all ages? Check out these blog posts:
Holiday Gift Guide: Best Toys for 2-Year-Olds
Holiday Gift Guide: Best Toys for 3-Year-Olds
Holiday Gift Guide: Best Toys for 4-Year-Olds
