IKEA is one of our favorite stores. We wanted to share some of our favorite items from IKEA that we personally used for our baby (age 0 through 1, and beyond). There are TONS of baby products and Montessori-friendly baby products available at IKEA. It can be hard to decide what to get among all the choices. We wanted to share our top favorite baby products from IKEA. These are our most used and loved Montessori-friendly items!
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If you’re planning on getting a crib, the Sniglar crib is one item we always recommend to expectant parents. (Many Montessori families skip the crib, and that’s okay too!). The Sniglar crib is the best crib in our opinion! Why? Because it’s one of the few cribs on the market that is made of 100% wood (beech to be exact). With no paint and no sealant, this makes it as close to non-toxic as you’re going to get with a crib. Even better, it is affordable! One of the cheapest cribs you can find – currently only $79. We bought this crib and absolutely love it!
The Antilop High Chair with Tray is another one of our most used products from IKEA for the baby. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a high chair when this (less than!) $20 one does the job and does the job well? It doesn’t take up a lot of space and is super easy to keep clean! While high chairs generally are not considered Montessori, the reality is many Montessori-inspired families use a high chair and some point or another. That’s the case for our family! We started using this high chair around 6 months old when starting solid foods. We also used a weaning table and used the high chair less and less as baby got older – another reason not to spend a fortune on it!
Keeping with the eating theme, the Kladdig Bib is also a tried and true favorite. We used the Montessori-friendly “baby led weaning” approach to eating, which leads to a very messy baby! These bibs were lifesavers! If we didn’t end up stripping down the baby to her diaper, we would use the Kladdig Bib to help protect her clothes. We like how they have the sleeves which really help in keeping baby clean as well as the pocket to catch food. They are lightweight and affordable. We ended up with a couple. We like to keep one in the diaper bag for on the go. Now that baby is older, we use these less for food and more for messy art projects! They have held up for years, but just to warn you, they don’t look as nice and pristine as when we bought them. We found that they do stain (we are big spaghetti eaters), though admittedly we haven’t tried that hard to get the stains out. Better the bib than the clothes!
Open shelving is a Montessori-friendly way to present toys and books to your child. The Kallax cube shelving is quite popular in Montessori homes, but we opted for the Besta shelves and couldn’t be happier! We have both a low Besta shelf as well as a taller one where we put a shelf in the middle. We like that the Besta shelves are more customizable, as well as wider and can fit bigger toys than the Kallax. This was less of an issue when our daughter was a baby, but now that she is older, many of her toys (especially puzzles!) would not fit in the Kallax cubes.
We found that our daughter really enjoyed this owl puppet as a baby. It was great for her hand eye coordination (we manipulated the puppet). It was also a great way to play with and engage with her. She loved when we would fly the owl around and when it would give her kisses. The owl puppet is a toy that can be enjoyed for years. It’s also perfect for on the go and has been on many travels with us. Another Montessori-friendly soft toy that we have and love from Ikea is this ball. It has bright bold colors and patterns that are stimulating. It also rattles. Perfect for little hands! It’s also grown well with our child. This is the perfect ball to toss or throw around.
For less than $5, we highly recommend getting these stainless steel measuring spoons for your baby! Our daughter loves to hold these, shake these and chew on these! The stainless steel is perfect for teething as it provides cool relief that many other teething toys don’t. We found that these are very similar to our Kleynimals (but at a fraction of the cost!).
For more information on how to adapt your home and life to a Montessori lifestyle, check out this new article we are featured in over at Porch.com HERE or click the image below:
Thanks for reading! We hope this list was helpful if you’re trying to decide what to pick up on your net Ikea trip!
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