18 Month Favorites – a Year and a Half with Camden

Camden has just recently hit the 18 month mark, and I’ve written a post of all of his 18 month favorites. If your little one is coming up to this age, hopefully you can get some great ideas for her!

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Camden has just recently hit the 18 month milestone, and it is crazy how much he has changed from just a short 6 months ago when he hit the 1 year milestone!

He is into all sorts of new things, toys and activities and I wanted to share some of them with you! If your little one is coming up on 18 months, here are a bunch of ideas and activities that a typical 18 month old may love!

18 Month Old Favorites – Indoor Toys

Camden has really gotten into tractors, cars, and anything with wheels (which he calls ‘wee-wee’, hahaha) in the last few months. He loves to drive them along the floor and go “zzzzzooooommmm,” and it is so adorable! We’re actually leaning toward a tractor-themed birthday in January, because he is so obsessed with them.

Some of his favorite cars and things with wheels are the Oball Go-Grippers (and they are so stinking affordable!), all of the VTech Smart Wheels cars/animals and playsets, and the large OBall bulldozer. The OBall toys are great, because they’re so easy for little hands to grab. And we have the Disney Mickey track with the bouncer.

The Vtech sets are fun because the animals sing and talk, and the playsets are super interactive. There are tons of them, and I have a feeling that, as he gets older, we’ll be investing in more and more of them. And the OBall bulldozer is fun because he loves to put things in the front of it.

He is also obsessed with all his stuffed animals. Every time we leave the house, he has to gather at least 3 stuffies to take with him. It’s pretty adorable – until I have a whole zoo in my car! 

18 Month Favorites – Outdoor Toys

Our son loves all things that he can ride on or push around right now. We got a couple of the items for Christmas and had them put away until he was old enough. And I’ve found some cute ride-on toys for great deals at garage sales. He’s got a push tractor that he loves, and the seat lifts up so he can put things (like sticks and dirt – because #boylife) inside of it.

Camden is also currently obsessed with this Rock, Roll & Ride Tricycle – and this mama loves it too! It’s cool because it converts 3 ways to grow with your baby. At first the handle folds under and makes it a rocking bike for littles to rock on. Then the handle unfolds and it’s a push-trike that we can push him around on (and there are non-mobile pedals for him to rest his feet on). And then we can take the handle off when his feet are long enough to reach the mobile pedals, and he has an independent tricycle.

18 Month Favorites – Foods

In the past couple of months, Camden finally cut a few more teeth. I think he finally has 10 teeth now, so he can eat some harder foods, like crackers and tougher meats. But his all-time favorite food is still this Goat Cheese Risotto (seriously, it’s been his favorite food since he was 9 months old!).

As far as main dishes, he loves turkey sausage links/patties, risotto, mac and cheese (and I throw in all kinds of veggies!), and scrambled eggs with goat cheese/sausage/mixed veggies.

Some of his favorite snacks are Creamies, Yogis, graham crackers, Kind cherry bites, and organic cheese puffs. He also likes Stretch Island fruit leathers and cheese sticks!

As far as drinks go, he still has only had water and milk. But for his milk, I give him a mixture of half whole milk and half unsweetened vanilla oat milk. He loves it and I think it tastes great too!

18 Month Favorites – Sleeping

When did you take away your toddler’s pacifier? Right now, we still let him have his in the bedroom and the car. But he knows to leave the pacifier when he leaves his room in the morning, so he’s okay all day without it. 

We’re starting to transition him to using a blanket in the crib, so that we can phase out the pacifier (hopefully). It took me forever to find a good blanket with satiny edges that was large enough to cover him, but not so big that it engulfed him and that he couldn’t carry around himself. I finally found a cute puppy one at Target, and when I handed to Camden at the store, he demanded I tuck it around his lap in the cart and he cuddled the puppy head the entire trip. It was so cute! 

He also sleeps with a stuffed Pete the Kitty. He watches Pete the Cat Wheels on the Bus every night before bed, and we read lots of Pete the Kitty and Pete the Cat books during the day. I love the stuffed Pete, because it’s small (so it was perfect to introduce as a first nighttime stuffie when he was 12 months old) and it is completely baby-safe (no plastic eyes or parts). 

18 Month Favorites – Technology

We don’t let Camden have much screen time, but he does see a few minutes here and there. When he is not feeling well or really fussy and tired, he likes to watch a bit of Paw Patrol (he fell in love with a stuffed Zuma at a store and carries that puppy everywhere!), Super Wings, PJ Masks or Cars.

And, like I said earlier, he watches a couple of YouTube videos before bed. We got a free stuffed animal tablet holder (these things are so cute and functional!), so Camden sits in his soft chair and I put the tablet on the bear and he gets to watch a couple videos. His favorites are Pete the Cat Wheels on the Bus / Pete Saves Christmas, ‘I’m Still Standing’ from the movie Sing, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’ both by Super Simple Songs. The last two are nice calm-down songs, where we turn off the overhead light and turn on his lamp to get ready for bedtime. 

18 Month Favorites – Books

Camden is a huge book fan! He can’t get enough of reading, and we read 6+ books every day; it’s usually upwards of 10 or 12. I can’t even name all of his favorites, but here’s a list of 10:

• The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton
• Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton
• Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
• Little Blue Truck’s Christmas (he loves every LBT book, actually)
• That’s Not My Otter (and every other That’s Not My… book)
• Pete the Cat: The Wheels on the Bus by James Dean
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle
• Yummy, Yucky by Leslie Patricelli
• Pete the Cat: Old MacDonald Had a Farm by James Dean
• My First One Hundred Words by Roger Priddy

What Camden Really Doesn’t Like

Just like he has his favorites, Camden also has a strong personality and he has lots of things he doesn’t like. 

He doesn’t like water poured (or sprinkled) on his head. That means he’s not a big fan of the public pool yet. I’m hoping to get him in some swim lesson at the Y to help him learn to be more comfortable with the water. 

Camden also is not a fan of anything spicy. We got to see some really hilarious reactions when he tried guacamole and salsa at a restaurant. His toddler-friend loves spicy food, so he wanted to try what she had – but he was less than impressed! 

He did like brushing his teeth, until he starting cutting a couple of teeth and his mouth was sore. Brushing his teeth became a huge battle, but we’re slowly helping him be more comfortable with it.I’m planning to write a post on ways to help your toddler enjoy brushing his teeth – because it’s been a process with us! 

And that’s that! Camden is a happy, healthy toddler and watching him grow, learn and climb every day is a joy! He makes more messes than I could ever have imagined, and he exhausts me, but it’s in the best way. I love getting to be home with him every day and explore and play with him! 

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