Top 10 Second Birthday Gifts

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I have now been through two second birthdays, with both a girl and a boy, so I know what’s alllll the rage for a 2-year-old. This list will give you and family members great ideas for what to get your little one, no matter what they’re into.

1. Balance Bike and/or Scooter

If you haven’t yet taken the plunge on these two large-ticket gifts, 2 is the perfect age! My son was able to use his older sister’s hand-me-down scooter around 18 months, and he got his very own for his 2nd birthday (dark green with a green dinosaur head, which he picked out himself). The brand I love and trust is the Micro Mini because it’s stable, durable, lightweight, smooth to ride, and intuitive to steer using body weight (not by turning the handles, which can cause more accidents).

At age 2, they can also start using a real balance bike, and my guy just got a red Strider 12” Classic for his birthday. I’m not really sure what the difference is between the Classic and Sport, but I figured for a savings of $27, the good old Classic was probably good enough.

With either of these gifts, you’ll want a good helmet too. The Baby Nutty is great for that age, and I also just discovered the Micro helmets for my older one, which I love because they’re lightweight and fit really well. For some reason they only come in XS and M – the M is perfect for my 4.5-year-old, but my 2-year-old is right in between sizes, so I’ll wait until the M will fit him to upgrade.

2. Play Kitchen

This is also the perfect age to start getting the most out of a play kitchen. They’re old enough to fully interact with it and are at the age where they’re starting to get into pretend play. So get ready to accept that pretend soup served inside your mouth with a giant spoon. There are a ton of great accessories that you can add on too, and they also make great gifts for the holidays or future birthdays.

Here are some of my favorite play kitchens and accessories:

3. Indoor Climbing Toys

If you have a little one who is very active, it’s nice to be able to redirect their climbing interests to safer options than the bookshelf or window ledge. Here are some of my favorite indoor climbing options that don’t take up too much space:

  • The BABY JOY Folding Slide is one of my absolute favorite items, because it gets a ton of play time (climbing, sliding, scaling the front, crawling under it, rolling objects down it) AND folds up when you’re not using it. It can also be used indoors or outdoors since it’s plastic. My very tall 4.5-year-old still likes it too, even though she can practically touch the floor while sitting on the top of it. My little guy was able to climb up it and go down even before he turned 1, and at age 2 now he still loves it and uses it every day.

  • Pikler Triangle – there are a lot of different options for this type of wooden climber. We bought ours when our kids were 1 and 4 and decided to get a larger set to accommodate both kids for a few years that comes with a triangle, arch, standard ramp/slide, and rock climbing ramp. I purchased from this Etsy shop and the quality is excellent.

  • The Nugget is all the rage – so popular that it’s often on backorder. So plan ahead! It is worth the wait, though, and even if it comes after the birthday, the good news is that your two-year-old won’t really know or care. We have ours set up in the playroom as a couch (which is surprisingly comfortable to sit on), and we have also used it to make forts and do “stair sliding.” It could even be used as a bed for two small children, because it comes in two separate long pieces.

  • Pop Up Tunnels, Ball Pit, and Play Tent for Kids – not exactly a climbing toy, but another great toy for encouraging physical activity. Plus I love how the pieces can be used individually and are easily collapsible so they don’t take up much room if you’re putting them away. We got two sets of these plastic pit balls to go with it, which my kids even like playing with on their own.

4. Puzzles, Games & Building Toys

This is the age at which they start becoming interested in puzzles and games. Well maybe more like 2.5, but doesn’t hurt to have them by the 2nd birthday so that they’re ready to go once they show more interest and a greater attention span! Here are some favorites of mine for that age:

By age 2, they also can really start to use building toys and it’s fun to see them get more and more adept at it over time. Here are some of my favorites, which your child is likely to enjoy for years to come:

5. Things That Go

It seems like pretty much all kids enjoy things on wheels, and my son in particular is OBSESSED with trucks of any kind. He already knows more names of trucks than I do (what exactly is a skid steer?!?), and he equally likes the ones that make noise and the ones that he can just push around on the floor and load up with stuff. There are tons of options to choose from, so here are a few tried & true favorites in our household:

  • If you’re looking for a BIG second birthday gift, this is a great age for a train table. We got our son the KidKraft Waterfall Mountain Wooden Train Set & Table with 120 Pieces and 3 Storage Bins, but there are a number of different ones depending on your aesthetics and size requirements.

  • For just a regular train set, I love Obrium – they’re all wooden like Brio but less expensive. The 52 Pcs Deluxe Wooden Train Set is a perfect starter set.

  • Green Toys Dump Truck, Recycling Truck, Fire Truck and School Bus are all good choices. The Green Toys Construction Vehicle Set, 3-Pack is also awesome – they’re slightly smaller and perfect for the playground, sandbox or even the bathtub.

  • Playkidz Kids 15" Garbage Truck Toy with Lights, Sounds, and Manual Trash Lid – seeing the garbage get picked up is the highlight of my kids’ week, and my 2-year-old and 4.5-year-old fight over this one daily

  • Fisher-Price Little People Big Yellow Bus – this is a large school bus that I found my son sitting in/on shortly after receiving it for his birthday (“Look, Mommy, sit on bus!”). It has a handle to be able to pull it around, and you can load it up with the little people it comes with or any small stuffed animals and other toys, as my son frequently does

  • Coogam 4 Pack Friction Powered Cars Construction Vehicles Toy Set – they move by themselves with just the slightest push, and they’re the perfect size for little hands.

  • Melissa & Doug Keys & Cars Rescue Garage is a car toy and educational toy at once that works on fine motor skills since you use a key to open the garage doors; if they’re not yet ready for the key part, you can just keep the doors open so they can slide them up and down to get the cars out.

  • Wooden Car Ramp Racer Toy Vehicle Set with 7 Mini Cars & Race Tracks – fascinating to watch and easy to move from room to room

  • Construction Race Tracks is fun even for adults (trust me) – battery-powered cars move by themselves along the tracks and they bump into each other which provides endless gleeful screams; it comes in a dinosaur version too

  • Green Toys Toy Wagon is the perfect toddler-sized wagon – they can pull it around and also load it up with stuff to transport from room to room.

  • VTech Sit-to-Stand Alphabet Train is a toy that every child I’ve ever met has loved. We used to bring it to the playground when we lived in NYC and even the big kids would be attracted to it. My 4-year-old still likes to ride around the house on it, and it’s held up well after years of heavy use. It is another one of those rather annoying toys that lights up and plays sounds, but it’s not terrible – and I like that there’s more to it than that. There are some interesting mechanical elements too, such as putting the letters in the top and watching them pop out the bottom. You can detach the seat to let them push it around or attach the seat to ride on it.

6. Pretend Play

You’ve probably already seen your child start doing pretend play, and this is the age at which they start really getting into it. There are a ton of different options to inspire the imagination in your little one. Whatever they’re into, they’re bound to enjoy playing with these:

7. Arts & Crafts

Two is also a great age to get more into arts & crafts with your child. For a large gift, I loved introducing an art easel at that age. My daughter loved painting and it came in especially handy during potty training while we were trapped indoors for two days. I have yet to find a “perfect” art easel, but this Melissa & Doug Deluxe Standing Art Easel came pretty close. You’ll want to get the accessories along with it: Melissa & Doug Easel Accessory Set - Paint, Cups, Brushes, Chalk, Paper, Dry-Erase Marker and Melissa & Doug Easel Paper Roll- 18" X75' (Set of 2). Plus smocks and a splat mat!

Here are some other smaller arts & crafts favorites:

8. Musical Instruments

I started playing the piano at a very young age and developed a lifelong love for classical music, so I love the idea of fostering an early interest in music in my children. Just having musical instruments around probably won’t quite do the trick, but it can’t hurt, right? Well maybe your ears, but it’s worth it in my opinion to see their enjoyment at making “music.” My favorite big musical instrument gift is a toy piano – after some research into one that would be a good size for a toddler and would sound like an actual piano (not an off-key twangy toy), we got the Melissa & Doug Learn-To-Play Piano With 25 Keys, which I love. It’s the perfect size for the little ones, it sounds realistic and in tune, and it has enough keys to play most kids’ songs. Both my kids have loved banging around on it and hearing me sound out their favorite songs, and over time the bangs have turned into deliberate finger presses and an actual interest in learning how to play songs.

Here are a few of my other favorite smaller musical instruments for two-year-olds:

9. Sensory and Educational Toys

There are some really fun sensory toys that you can start introducing at this age. Some may have age warnings, so use at your own comfort level. My kids stopped automatically putting things in their mouths around age 1 so I’ve felt comfortable introducing some 3+ toys by age 2, but still heavily supervised. Here are a few favorites:

  • Kinetic Sand – I was afraid to try this for a while because the thought of sand inside the house was a big no, but this stuff actually sticks together so it’s easy to clean up and not like regular sand which scatters everywhere. I still prefer using it outdoors, but if we want to play with it indoor, I just lay down one of these splat mats and supervise to make sure my son doesn’t decide to travel with it. I got one of these Beach Sand Kingdom sets and then a bunch of bags of just sand, and put them all in a large plastic bin.

  • Water Beads – definitely want to supervise while playing with these to make sure they don’t eat them or squish them, but don’t worry because these will be fun for you to play with too (just running your hands through them is like a kind of stress relief and what mom doesn’t need that!). If you get the Soft & Squishy Ocean Animals above, they’d be fun to add to the water beads in a plastic bin along with these nets.

  • Creativity for Kids Sensory Bin – these are great and come in a number of different varieties; the Garden and Critters is the first one I got and it’s adorable; my son of course loves the Construction Zone one; and if you want to marry your new love of water beads with kinetic sand, the Ocean and Sand one is great too.

  • Fidget toys are all the rage! This 3-Pack Push Pop Fidget Toy is a great value and comes in fun colors and shapes.

You can also never go wrong with educational toys in my book, and I buy them throughout the year as my kids show interest in new things. Here are a few favorites for 2-year-olds:

10. Play Furniture

If the grandparents are asking for a big ticket item to get your child for their birthday, a kids’ table and chair set is a gift that keeps on giving. It’s great for snacks, arts and crafts, or those times that they Just. Will. Not. Sit. in their high chair at the big dining table. My all-time favorite first set is the Pottery Barn Kids My First Table + Chairs Set. It’s the perfect size for this age and very well made, plus a good weight so nothing is likely to tip on them. We now have a bigger table in the playroom that accommodates our tall 4.5-year-old well, and I just got the Amazon Basics Kids Solid Wood Table and 2 Chair Set for the kitchen. You can definitely feel the difference between that one and the PBK one, but it’s a great small size and a fraction of the price. Other good options on the less expensive side are the Melissa & Doug Tables & Chairs 3-Piece Set and KidKraft Farmhouse Table & 4 Chair Set.

It’s also nice for a kid to have their own special chair for reading, drinking milk, playing quietly (ha!). We have a Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chair for both of our kids and they’re pretty adorable and a great size (we have the middle/regular size). I have the two chairs surrounding a low book shelf in the play room, which is great because they will both reach for a book and sit in their respective chairs to enjoy it. Now if they will just do this for one hour straight, maybe I could actually relax with a cup of coffee and a book of my own (a mom can dream, right?). Some people prefer the Crate & Kids Nod Chair, which is also a good choice. It’s firmer than the PBK chair and has a lower, rounded back. And then there are a bunch of less expensive options in various characters that you can find at stores like Target or Buy Buy Baby.

The Nugget mentioned above can also fit into this category of play furniture. Well worth the price tag, and you may even want more than one! we currently have one in our playroom and in my son’s room for reading bedtime books.

As a bonus gift, don’t forget about books! I’m of the mindset that you can never have too many, although our bookshelves may tell a different story. Truly, though, books make great gifts at any age, and although we do have a ton, we read them all and my kids now love reaching for books to flip through on their own. By age 2, they may still have a fairly short attention span, so board books are still great at this age, as are interactive books. Check out my Favorite Books for Babies & Toddlers for ideas.