Top 10 Toddler Products

Is your kid moving from the baby stage to the toddler stage? You need different stuff! Here are my top 10 toddler products that I recommend to everyone with a kid who is about 18 months to 3 years old.

My youngest just turned four. Do you know what that means? I am officially out of the toddler stage of parenting! Now that I’m fully through these years that are marked by sweetness and spice, I feel qualified to look back on all the products we used in this stage. Some were good, some were bad, and some were unnecessary. I’ve whittled down the good ones to my top 10 toddler products.

Now, my top 10 toddler products aren’t necessarily the essentials. I’m not including products that you also used during your kid’s baby stage or obvious products like a car seat or pull-ups. These items are the ones that really made my life easier when my kids were toddlers, so, naturally, I think you need them to help your family get through this season of life.

These are in no particular order. The first one I discuss isn’t necessarily #1 or #10. All of these are equally good things to have to get you and your kid through toddlerhood.

Potty seat

I’m starting off my list of the top 10 toddler products with a hot take. Most of the “parenting experts” I see online support the use of a standalone potty when your toddler is potty training. That’s a big no thanks for me. I didn’t want potties in multiple rooms in my house (or my car) or to deal with the mess of what went into the potties. I was perfectly fine converting our perfectly good toilets into something our toddlers could use. How did I do that? Potty seats, of course.

We tried quite a few different variations of the potty seat over the years, and two stood out for different reasons. I liked the potty seat with a built-in ladder for the kids’ bathroom. It basically just lived on the toilet in that bathroom for years and provided a stable, secure place for my toddlers to use the potty. For the more communal bathrooms in our home (our main floor powder room and the basement bathroom), I preferred a simple potty seat insert that could easily be installed and removed for each visit. A hook on the side of the toilet kept it close at hand for the toddlers but allowed adults to use the toilet without first needing to uninstall a large contraption.

Now, I didn’t know about this when I first had a toddler, but they now make a toilet seat that includes a drop-down potty seat that you can easily move up and down depending on the size of the butt. I would have 100% swapped out all the toilet seats in my house with these bad boys if I had only known they existed when my oldest began his potty journey.

Toddler tower

The toddler tower is perhaps my quintessential toddler essential. Before we invested in a toddler tower, my life was rough. Especially at dinnertime. My son could not stand that I was making dinner and would let me know it. He was happy only if I held him in one hand and made dinner with the other. Needless to say, this wasn’t a sustainable model. I did some research and decided to invest in a toddler tower, hoping that he would chill out and let me make dinner if he felt like he was involved in the process. I am happy to report that this is exactly what happened.

Now, toddler towers aren’t cheap but stay with me here. We have gotten 5 years and counting of near daily use out of this thing, so it was well worth the initial money we spent. The specific toddler tower we chose, the Guidecraft Contemporary Kitchen Helper®, appears to be out of stock (gasp!). We liked that it was made of solid wood, collapsible, and included a non-slip surface. It looks like a similar version of this product, the Martha Stewart Kitchen Helper®, is still available in limited colorways. This is firmly in my top 10 toddler products, so buy it now if you’re interested in saving your sanity!

Bed bumpers

You probably want to skip this one. Your baby’s crib transitions into a toddler bed and you think that’s perfect. Sorry, you’re wrong. Yes, your crib might transition into a toddler bed, but toddler beds are awful. When it’s finally time to move your baby out of the crib (and trust me, you want to wait as long as you possibly can), go straight to a regular sized bed and use bed bumpers to make sure your kid doesn’t fall out. Doing this will save your sleep and your sanity!

There are many options for bed bumpers, but I recommend the inflatable ones. Why? They’re easily deflated and packed back into their box so they can go with you when you travel or when your toddler needs to nap at Grandma’s house. I was skeptical about these inflatable bed bumpers, but after four years of use, I can firmly say they belong on my list of top 10 toddler products.

Cloth napkins

Toddlers are messy, y’all. If you’re relying on wipes or paper towels to clean them, you’ll be going through these items at an alarming rate. Instead, invest in a cheap multipack of baby washcloths to use as cloth napkins in the kitchen. They work great for this purpose! When they’re dry, they function as a regular napkin at the dinner table. When they’re wet, you can really scrub them to get rid of the tomato sauce or chocolate they somehow got on their ears. I’m not a hack person, but this is one hack I can get behind.

Stepstools

There are a lot of reasons that toddlers can be maddening. One major reason is that they are short and they don’t appreciate that. Help your toddler manage this frustration (and help yourself by avoiding countless meltdowns) by strategically placing stepstools all around your house. They are probably on every parent’s list of top 10 toddler products. We had them (and still have them!) at every sink, in the kitchen, and one that roams wherever it’s needed (often in front of the built-in shelves in our living room). Luckily, basic stepstools are cheap, so stock up!

Cleaning toys

Don’t waste your money on shiny, flashy toys for toddlers. Instead, opt for toddler versions of the items you use around the house on a daily basis. This holds for basically every category of household item, but especially for cleaning tools. Both of my kids couldn’t get enough of their toddler sized cleaning tools. We had the classic Melissa and Doug set, a toddler Swiffer, and a toddler Dyson. Don’t sleep on these top 10 toddler products – they’ll provide hours of independent play!

Play kitchen

A play kitchen is a toddler essential for similar reasons. Your toddler will absolutely love to watch you prepare food in the kitchen and will be delighted to have a kitchen of his own. I really think this is the toy that’s gotten the most play in our house over the last 4+ years. It’s not a stretch to say that it’s been used every single day since Santa Claus brought it for my son right after he turned two. And it’s still going strong with a 6- and a 4-year-old!

Snack cups

No one should be surprised that snack cups appear on my list of top 10 toddler products. Toddlers live on snacks alone, so you’ll need cups to hold them. There are a lot of great snack cups out there, but I really liked a snack cup tower. It fit nicely in the diaper bag, offered lots of variety, and was easy for the kids to open (but sealed to keep things from spilling everywhere). If you don’t own a snack cup tower, now’s the time to change that!

Balance bike

We’re playing the long game with the next item on my list of top 10 toddler products. Getting your toddler a balance bike won’t really be anything more than a way to have a little fun on the driveway. But just wait. When your kid exits the toddler stage and is ready to learn how to ride a regular bike (without training wheels!), you’ll be singing the balance bike’s praises!

My son spent hours on his balance bike as a toddler. When the time came to teach him how to ride a regular bike, he mastered it in less than an hour with minimal scrapes. In fact, his only real injury came when Dad asked for a high five when he went zooming by because he couldn’t believe how fast he had learned. If you want learning how to ride a bike to look this easy, get your toddler a balance bike!

Stickers

Yes, you read that right. Stickers are rounding out this list. The last item on my list of top 10 toddler products might seem frivolous, but don’t discount the humble sticker. Stickers can get you through even the worst moments of the dreaded toddler stage.

We used stickers for lots of things when my kids were toddlers. They’re miracle workers.

Sticker charts

Despite “parenting experts” hating them, both of our kids did really well with sticker charts to reinforce good decision making. We used stickers to remind my son to have good behavior at school and my daughter to stay in bed at night. We didn’t use them for long periods of time, but a few months of sticker charts for each kid were life savers.

Sticker books

One of my kids’ favorite screen-free travel activities as toddlers (and still today) is to play with stickers. I just grab a sticker pack or two and a pocket-sized notebook from the Dollar Tree and let them go to town making scenes with stickers in their notebooks. We have passed entire flights doing just this activity with toddlers.

Sticker pads

Melissa and Doug Seek & Find Sticker Pads have saved my life on many occasions. For a while, parking my daughter at the kitchen table with one was the only way I could get dinner on the table. These are good, really good.

Top 10 Toddler Products