Does your baby reach for your smartphone all the time? Curb the move by introducing a far safer baby toy… A telephone in the shape of an old-fashioned rotary version!

These toys are a classic for a reason and it hardly matters that little kids don’t even recognize this as a phone anymore. Between dinging noises, twisting dials and a slim receiver to hold, little babies need no prompt to play.

But for added fun, today I sat down and made “calls” with Veronika. I pretended to have a conversation with her grandmother, chatting about what we would do that day. Make sure you use big facial expressions and exaggerated voices.

When she saw me talking into the receiver, she had to be part of the action of course.

She started babbling along and reaching for the mouthpiece to hold up to her own ear. Games like this are fantastic, since you’ll be playing but also teaching your little one about real-life interactions and etiquette.