We cannot rave enough about the Yoto player. We think it’s the perfect gift for children, whatever age they are, as it can grow with them. Although the age suitability says three years plus, that’s for independent use. You can use it as a white-noise machine to help sooth babies; as a nightlight and gentle sleep trainer for toddlers; and, of course, as an audiobook reader and creative outlet for older children.

You simply plug it in, switch it on and sign up to an online account (to which only adults have access). You can then load content onto the device, by buying cards from the online store. You get a physical card, but your purchase loads to your online account immediately, too, so you can play it straight away. Children love collecting the cards (from Harry Potter and Horrible Histories to Roald Dahl, Disney, childhood classics and many, many more), and they’re simple for them to insert into the Yoto device. Our mini testers have loved listening to the new Harry Potter releases and have discovered Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, while younger testers enjoyed the Sleepy Tales and bedtime wind-down cards.

If you’re a parent who longs to be crafty with your kids but cannot face the accompanying mess, Crayola has the solution for you. These mess-free colouring sets come with five pens and 18 colouring pages, and the pens only work on the pages. This means if your little darling takes the pens off piste – onto the table, sofa, rug and so on – no marks will show up. It’s magic and more advanced than the water-art colouring books. We chucked this in our bag to take to a restaurant, and it kept our mini tester busy for ages. Our little Gabby’s Dollhouse fan was thrilled with this set, but there are loads of other characters available, too.

As huge fans of Connetix, we were thrilled when we heard about the new road packs for this year. Connetix does a huge range of magnetic tiles, offering open-ended play for children. The sets are durable, safe and can be used in countless ways. This road set suited our testers well, as they were able to make a mini town out of the tiles and then create houses, shops and so around the track. Our four-year-old and seven-year-old testers went back to this set over and over again. It is quite expensive, but it will last forever and grow with your child and their interests.

Last year, Beast Lab (£90, Argos.co.uk) was the toy for kids of around the 5-10 year old mark. This year, the same team has brought out a new iteration – the MrBeast cryo set. This is a bit less convoluted to set up than Beast Lab, if you’re an old hand. If you’re new to the whole phenomenon, essentially, you go through some processes (as detailed on the packaging) to unveil a new action figure toy. In this case, you need to thaw the “cryo chamber” – turn a plastic key and it powers up, with lights inside switching on. Then you pour some thermite powder into a tray on the chamber and add water – it bubbles up and unveils an emergency button. Once pressed, a fingerprint recognition plate pops open and then the sides of the chamber pop open. You can then defrost the figure’s weapon. He has a launcher on his arm, which you can load and shoot, and a light-up button on his front that controls the various modes. This blew the mind of our seven-year-old tester, and they played with the beast over and over again.

The concept of Lovevery is a winner for us. You sign up for a subscription, then, every two months, you’re sent a play kit that’s developmentally appropriate for your child. The toys are all designed to build neural connections in their developing brains. The toys are well made, with the idea they can be handed down to other children. Our mini tester tried the ‘babbler’ play kit, for children aged 13-15 months. Inside was a ball run with a hide-and-seek box, a wooden stacker, a wooden puzzle, a board book and more. There’s also a play guide for parents to read. Our little tester’s face lit up when they saw the box, and we loved that we could gradually introduce the new toys over the two months – whipping out a new toy on a rainy day was fantastic. This is a very special gift indeed. The kits start from £80 but it’s worth pointing out that, although this is a subscription kit, you can cancel any time, meaning you could just subscribe for one month.

Our testers went back to this wobble board again and again. For active, fidgety children, we found it was a great way to focus their energy into something – wobbling away and developing their balance and proprioception (the body’s ability to sense its movements and location) in the process. As well as standing on the board and swaying around, our testers found loads of different ways to use this toy. We found them using it as a step to reach up to wash their hands, and as a bridge in a town they built out of the their other toys. One of our litmus tests for a good toy was always going to be whether testers return to it, and this one comes up trumps in that area.

In the past, as boring parents, we’ve found walkie talkies fairly annoying – they’re loud, always seem to need new batteries, end up getting lost, and so on. These VTech walkie talkies, however, changed our minds. Our mini testers were beyond delighted with them, and played with them almost every day for the month we tested them. Each unit does require three AAA batteries, but they seemed to last and last. We loved that you can’t change channels on these walkie talkies, which keeps things secure and simple. Our testers loved that they could send simple images back and forth to each other, as well as using the voice changer. The gadgets also include a torch at the top, which is very cool, according to our testers. We liked that they’re durable (they survived plenty of drops) and easy to use, without us having to constantly reprogram them.

This is a great gift for kids who crave something to look after. Waddles is a robotic penguin, who can walk (lead included), dance and eat. He even burps. He’s gorgeously soft and seems to respond well to being stroked. It surprised us how taken with Waddles our tester was, duly following him about as he, well, waddled around the house. He’s well made, and included enough features to keep our tester entertained. Waddles does require batteries to keep him going but is otherwise pretty low maintenance and fostered loads of independent playing.

Our little fan of Bluey was ecstatic at this frankly huge aeroplane toy. It converts from an aeroplane to a beach hotel to a boat, which means our tester could play with it for ages, without losing interest. There are some small parts but we found it easy to keep them all together. While we found this toy quite huge, we didn’t hold that against it, as our tester enjoyed it so much. It’s pretty well made and feels durable, too.

Toddlers can’t ignore the siren call of Peppa Pig, and this Duplo set is going to have them beaming from ear to ear. You get all the pieces to build your own Peppa Pig house and host a birthday party. Our toddler tester loved this, and enjoyed playing with the house and different play parts, but equally they loved smashing it up (preschoolers are chaotically destructive, after all) and building other structures out of the component parts. Our little tester got loads of of use out of this set, too, as it comes with Peppa and two of her friends, all of which were brought along for bath time, car journeys and days at nursery. There’s plenty of play mileage here, as it’s more than a one-trick pony.

Full transparency here: despite the age suitability being six plus, our four-year-old testers loved this toy just as much as our older testers. Do with that information what you will. At first, we were a bit overwhelmed by the size (45cm) of this interactive toy. It has a huge impact on opening – and a lot of plastic packaging. However, our testers lost their minds on seeing this Stitch puppet, which makes noises, and you can operate his ears, eyes and jaws fairly easily. Our testers loved putting on shows for each other – and chasing each other around the house with him. We were worried he’d be a one-hit wonder but over a month of testing, we noticed our testers returned to him frequently and played with him in many different ways.

Our testers immediately took to this chart, with younger and older kids enjoying putting the pieces together and then looking through the emotion tiles. You can hang up to three emotions on the chart at once – all illustrated with an emoji-style face. We loved that it was all made from wood, and looked great in our home. Most importantly, it encouraged our children to talk about their emotions – or just quietly let us know how they were feeling.

Shrieks of delight is how we’d sum up the impact of this new toy, which has launched just in time for Christmas 2024. It’s a large dino head, which roars and rumbles when you tap it. It then springs open and a small pterodactyl soars into the air – which you can encourage to fly into your heads. You can do this over and over again, as our testers demonstrated. This toy is great for energetic kids and dino fans.

There are plenty of dolls on the market but we were particularly impressed with the quality of this Baby Born doll. Jonas comes with a range of accessories to promote nurturing. You can feed him – add water to the plate and see the food appear, as if by magic. You can then put him on the potty and give him a squeeze to relieve him. As with real babies, Jonas can cry, sleep, wet his nappy and you can bathe him. Our doll-obsessed tester absolutely loved Jonas and enjoyed all the extra play that the accessories added.

Our tester was totally entranced by this book, and looked at it independently for ages. Each page has part of the story of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream on it, and an area to press on the page. When you press the button, a beautiful melody plays from Mendelssohn’s suite of the same name. As listening is now thought of as the first phase in learning to read – especially in phonics – we loved that this book fosters a love of literacy from early on. Our tester loved explaining what the different excerpts sounded like, and what they made them feel. We think this will make a gorgeous gift for young children.

You can pre-order this book now, ahead of its 10 October release.

We absolutely loved the idea of these drawing mats, and our testers were on board, too. The set includes a black-and-white flexible mat with loads of sea creatures to colour, and games to play. There are also five pens in the set and a cute cotton draw-string storage bag. Our testers loved drawing and colouring on the mat, then wiping it clean to start over. This was absolutely brilliant for taking out and about with us, and, with lines and numbers to trace, our kids got some mark-making skills ticked off without them even realising.

Spidey is a big deal to lots of mini superhero fans. He’s kid friendly, cute and cool to younger kids. This toy brought our testers a huge amount of joy. It’s surprisingly large – which matters when you’re a kid, apparently – so, there was a big reaction to receiving this as a gift. Once out of the box, you can press the superhero’s foot and he plays a Spidey song and dances. Our testers rather cutely loved dancing around the living room with him. You can also lie him down on the floor and press his foot and he’ll crawl along the floor and play music. Our testers loved this toy and played with him for an extended period of time.

Our gamer testers loved this fun platform game for the Nintendo Switch. Two players can work together to solve the puzzles and get through the levels. As parents, we were delighted to see our testers working together to solve clues, rather than being pitted against one another. There were shrieks of joy and loads of laughter as they tried to figure out how to get through each stage. Even as an adult, we found this game fun and just the right level of skill is required – you can enjoy game play without any stress.

“I wish there was a toy that would actually grow with my child,” said every parent until they found our shopping guide. We couldn’t believe our luck when we found this ride-on scooter that can be used from 12 months through to 12 years. We think the price is well worth the investment too, which technically works out to be £10 a year.

Our two testers, aged 1 and 10-years-old, equally loved the scooter. The youngest mostly loved the opportunity to get behind some wheels to practice their “vroom vroom” sounds and beamed the biggest smile whenever the wheels flashed up. The light-up wheels really don’t get old for any age. Our 10-year-old tester, who is very much in his “too cool for baby toys” era, thankfully couldn’t tell it was the same product and loved the excitement of scooting to school on his own set of wheels.

If your toddler is anything like our little testers and are at the stage of becoming mini adults before their time then they will love this educational tower that allows them to feel involved all the grown up kitchen activities. Whether they are assisting with some stirring, prepping their own lunch or washing their hands – teaching your little ones valuable life skills has never been easier. This tower has become an essential in our kitchen for our 16-month-old who has finally stopped clinging to our leg everytime we cook and instead scribbles on the chalkboard, or independently moulds playdough while we load the dishwasher.