So I was at Target over the weekend looking for a hard baby toy that my daughter could chew on. My first born wasn’t much of a chewer, even when she was teething, but the new baby’s reason for being seems to be to get everything possible into her mouth. Like so many, I’m hesitant to buy something from China and learn next week that it isn’t safe, so I read the packaging for all the baby chew toys they had. Every single one was made in China. Every single one.

Now I’m on a mission. For some reason, the fact that I couldn’t find something not made in China has made it that much more important to me to do so. I’m happy to say that I have success finding some great toys made in America and Europe, and I want to share.

Now obviously – I make baby and kid toys, and I’m in America. My baby loves her blocks and her I-spy security blanket – she studies it and chomps away at it. I’m a big fan of simple, stimulating, home-made toys, but I can’t make everything I want. So this is where the search comes in.

1. Etsy.com
This is always the first place I shop. I’m a part of the Etsykids street team, and if you just enter “Etsykids” into the search box you’ll find a ton of great handmade kids stuff. So if you’re looking for blocks, you can enter “blocks etyskids”. This will help a lot because of the way the Etsy search function works, if you were to enter ‘blocks’ by itself, you end up with a lot of ‘block prints’ and other non-kid items. Using the Etsykids search will make sure you only get kid related results. There is one, non-etsykids shop I want to mention because of his cool toys: Stump Pond Woodworks

2. I found this cool list of Websites that sell mass-produced baby toys that are not made in China, if that’s what you’re looking for:
80% of toys are made in China, but not these!

I’m sure there are more resources out there – feel free to share any you’ve found in the comments section. Together we can avoid buying from China.

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