What to put on a toddler's Sinterklaas wishlist

Sinterklaas with a one-year-old means grandparents, aunts and neighbours all asking what to bring, and a living room that fills up with plastic if nobody steers it. A short list, written down and shared, is the steering. It takes an evening and it saves you from a pile of toys nobody touches by January.

Toys a toddler keeps playing with

Between one and three, children want to make things happen and to copy you. Toys that do one clear thing when you push, drop or stack them win over toys that light up on their own. A wooden shape sorter, a set of stacking cups, a Djeco puzzle with big wooden knobs. Duplo from about eighteen months. A Bobby Car or a low push trolley for the hallway, which is where most of the winter will be spent.

For drawing, Stabilo Woody crayons: fat, washable and hard to snap. A small drum or a xylophone, if the neighbours are forgiving. Board books with a character your child already knows (Nijntje, Dikkie Dik) get read forty times, which is the point of them.

Useful things count as gifts too. A plate and cup set with a favourite animal on it, bath toys that do not fill with water and go mouldy, pyjamas one size up. Grandparents sometimes find this dull. They change their mind when it is the cup your toddler asks for every evening.

Check the label before it goes on the list

Toys sold in the EU carry a CE mark, and anything with small parts has to carry the warning "not suitable for children under 36 months". Take that warning literally for a child who still puts everything in their mouth. If a toy runs on button cells, the compartment should only open with a screwdriver. Skip toys with long cords at this age.

Before you finalise the list, look the product up on the EU Safety Gate, where recalled products are published. Two minutes, and it settles the question for anything bought second-hand or from a marketplace seller.

Share it with everyone who wants to bring something

Have the list ready for relatives and friends two or three weeks before 5 December. Mix the prices: a cheap board book, a mid-priced puzzle, and one bigger, pricier item that two people can pay for together. That way the neighbour and the grandparents both find something at their level.

Add one line of detail per item: the current favourite colour, the animal of the month, the size your child wears now. If the adults in the family also give to each other, you can draw names online and run the grown-ups as a Secret Santa while the toddler stays outside the draw and gets something from everyone. Big families do this to keep the evening under control.

Look at what your toddler already plays with

The best items on the list come from a normal Tuesday. Which drawer does your toddler keep emptying, what do they drag out of the recycling, which spoon is the one they fight for? A whisk that costs next to nothing regularly beats an activity cube at ten times the price.

Put one or two things on the list that are not objects. A year's pass for the zoo, a term of parent-and-toddler swimming at the local pool, a music class on Saturday morning. They cost about what a big toy costs and they are still in use in June. Keep the whole list short; ten items is plenty for a two-year-old.

When the ideas are on paper, create a wishlist, paste the product links so the photos and prices come through, and share it with everyone who is shopping for your toddler this year.