When my daughter was born, waay back when I was a brand new mother, I decreed that she would have: no plastic toys, no disney or cartoon characters, no media tie-ins, nothing branded, nothing with batteries, nothing made overseas by children in sweatshops…

And then people started buying my darling toys. And I started seeing very cute, tempting toys.

Probably 70% of the toys in my house are plastic, 10% take batteries, and 60% are “Made in China.”
So I’m doing better than most, but I’m still cringing as my inner idealistic new mother shrieks “I told you so!”
We all knew better, and now we’re scrambling to buy toys that are safe for our children.

So here’s my round-up of American-made toys:
Americans at Work has a great list of toy sites here,
as does the Made in America site here,
and zebulonUSA’s list here.
At Fat Brain Toys, you can search their hundreds of American made toys.
For all sorts of adorable stuffed animals and accessories, go see Stuffington Bear Factory’s website.
Hearthsong is one of my favorite places to get toys, and while they don’t have a lot this year that are made in America, you can see what they have here.

You can’t buy from this list of American-made plastic toys, but it relieved my mind about a couple that the kids already had.

And as Dan Mosqueda states on his Gifts for Guys - Made in the USA blog post: (which I highly recommend)
“Well, let’s say you can’t find the perfect gift made in the USA, than what? How about looking at countries not actively involved in planning our doom?”

To that end, let’s avoid “Made in China.”
Power of Peace has a fab list of “not made in China” toys,
or go to the Not Made in China Toy Store.

My daughter, who is no longer a baby, wanted a watch this Christmas. I had problems finding an American-made watch for a little girl, so she’s getting a Swatch. Other than that, I’ve tried to find as many American-made products as I can.

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