when do babies know a toy phone is a phone?

OK, this is kinda a dumb question, but I'm going to ask it anyway :)

When do babies start to like to play with toys that represent other objects?

I have this toy for DD. It's a little toy "mobile phone". Plastic, with a ring on the end for chewing. I got it because it has buttons that you press and they say "hello, goodbye" and then "hola, adios" (spanish), and we're trying to do spanish/english bilingual stuff here, so I couldn't resist this thing.

But now I'm wondering when I should give it to her. She's coming up to 8 monhs now, and I don't think she knows a phone is a phone. Do you think if I give it to her now as something to suck and with buttons to press, she'll click that it's a "phone" later, and play at making calls later on? Or will it be better if I wait until I can demo to her how to "make calls" on it? I don't really know much about this stuff - this business of encouraging really young kids to do make believe stuff. Do they do it on their own?

Anyway, does anyone have a baby who likes to play with a phone? Do they know it's a phone? How old are/were they when they started to like this kind of a thing?

(yeah, reading this, this seems like such a silly, trivial question to be asking that I'm a little embarassed, but hey, that's never stopped me before...)

I say give it to her now! The best toys are ones that have different levels of play - ie suck on now - toy phone later :-) I think most kids learn through modelling so if you talk on it she will get that it's a phone. When your on the phone you can give her her phone to talk on that sort thing.

My daughter thinks anything remotely rectangular is a phone - remotes, blocks etc but DS never did that sort of play dispite our modelling so each kids is different.

BTW - not a silly question at all

I think DD was just over one when she started holding things up to her ear and saying "hewwo" :lol: Mind you it didn't need to be a toy phone or a real phone, her hand, a flat rock, just about anything was fair game to be used as a phone for a few weeks. I would just give it to her maybe for xmas she will figure it out ;)

I have a friend whose little girl picks up anyhting that looks like a phone, eg remotes,etc and put it up to ear. She is 11months old

Thanks everyone, that seems like good advice. I think I'll give it to her soon (I'll pick a relatively boring afternoon to introduce the new toy). It certainly does have stuff that is suitable for her now: the ring to chew, the bead on the ring to move around, and the buttons to press that make the sounds happen. And we'll see if she actually gets the phone idea later on.

Thanks for not laughing at my question, too :)

Juliette got one last Christmas at 8 months & she played with it opening & closing it, munching on it etc, but it wasn't untilabout 12 months when she realised it was a phone & what she should be doing with it.

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Juliette got one last Christmas at 8 months & she played with it opening & closing it, munching on it etc, but it wasn't untilabout 12 months when she realised it was a phone & what she should be doing with it.

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:yeahthat: Same as my ds.

I found it weird that ds thinks anything with two bits and a string in between is a phone, yet I can count on one hand the number of times he has seen someone use an 'old style' phone like that- we only have mobiles...

yeah i reckon give it to her now! the drooling and munching will turn into chatting on the phone in no time! :)

Our DD really liked it when we would 'talk' on her toy phone too. and now at the age of two we need to make sure that she hasnt started talking on the real phone LOL!