Can a baby have too many toys? According to many experts, the answer to this question is yes. And affluent babies these days seem to have an overabundance of playthings. So what’s the problem with pimping out your baby’s room with all the latest gizmos?

Much in the same way neuroscientists worry that the Internet is making us both hyper-stimulated and shallow at the same time (an abundance of links to clicky-clicky and amusing things to do but often no real depth to hold our concentration at any one time… except this site, of course). Babies with too many options can also become over-stimulated with less real depth in their play. Babies can end up going from toy to toy without engaging in in-depth, exploratory play with any one of them. This may hinder the development of creativity. Furthermore, having too many toys makes each toy less special, and so a baby doesn’t form the same type of strong attachments with any of them.

Another downside with too much stuff is that you don’t want your child to become too dependent on having lots of possessions around them to feel entertained. The more a child learns to rely on possessions for amusement, the less adept they’ll be at finding joy in their own creation. A little boredom here and there can be healthy for kids, just like a little pain and adversity here and there is also necessary for the development of a competent child. Through boredom they can learn how to self-soothe and find ways to entertain themselves. Some of the best discoveries and most cherished play times come from what kids discover and create themselves; not from what they pull from a box.

Creating an enriched (but not cluttered) environment
The other side of the coin is that having an “enriched” environment has been shown to make huge differences in cognitive brain growth and development. The more enriched the environment, the better the brain is wired at a time when it matters most. But there are several crucial things to remember about an enriched environment for your baby:

1. Babies are built to learn from – and take interest in – the ordinary things around them. In many cases, toys these days can simply be more of a distraction from the ordinary exploratory learning a baby would naturally engage in. Tasting father’s tie, pulling blades of grass from the lawn, splashing in a puddle of water, pulling on doggie’s tail; all these things and more are just as interesting as any plastic toy. An enriched environment comes from having access to an assortment of natural sensory experiences and things to explore, not necessarily because you have 76 pieces of plastic in every shape, size and color.
   
2. YOU are the primary part of your baby’s enrichment. A fully-equipped, self-contained super organism of endless baby enrichment. Infants and toddlers are built to soak in the enrichment you provide them, and this matters more than any toy. When you sing a variety of songs, do finger plays, play simple games, make funny faces or sounds, or read them books even if half the time they try to eat it, you’re providing enrichment.
   
3. That said, an enriched environment can still contain a variety of props. There’s a simple fix to the over-stimulation problem while still keeping your retail-store size collection of baby stuff: Rotate toys. It’s a trick used in all good child care centers, and it’s just as handy at home. Pick out 5 or 10 or 15 toys to keep in your baby’s area, then stick the rest in the closet. (The actual number kept isn’t really important; just keep enough so that he has things to do without being bombarded by too many choices.) After a couple of weeks or a month, or whenever your child seems to get bored and exhausted, put those toys away (you can keep a few regulars that your child really seems to enjoy a lot) and replace them with some of the ones in storage. There’s another positive aspect to this method: baby still gets variety, while you have a lot less to clean up every day.
4. Finally, when picking out playthings for your baby, the basics are often the best. Kids are supposed to play with toys, not have the toy play to them. Good baby toys should be at least 80% baby and 20% toy. Keep around things like stuffed animals, age appropriate blocks or shapes, push toys, baby musical instruments–things that your baby manipulates to perform an action–and less stuff that plays TO your baby (a button is pushed and something happens)