MadeForMums Toy Awards 2016: See the winning toys!

What are the MadeForMums Toy Awards about?

The MadeForMums Toy Awards are all about celebrating the best in children's toys, from toys for newborns to toys for pre-teens – and all ages, stages and genres in between.

We're known here at MadeForMums for our expert, honest and thorough product reviews, and we've brought those samestandards to our Toy Awards – knowing that the award of a winner's badge from us will be recognised both by parents and major retailers as a sign of outstanding quality and play potential.

How were the toys judged?

Because we want to recognise the great toys that entertain, educate and excite children of all ages and stages, we divided all our award entries into 24 different categories, and then judged them all on their play potential and value for money.

Some categories has additional judging criteria (such as portability, in our Top travel toy category, for example) and we also had an extra, user-voted category for Top online toy retailer.

Who were the judges?

We think the very best people to rate toys are the children who play with them, so we recruited a panel of over 120 child judges, ranging in age from 12 weeks to 12 years, and set them (and their mums) the task of playing with our toy entries and telling us exactly what they thought of them.

We also had a judging day at MadeForMums HQ, where expert members of our editorial team evaluated the toys themselves and collated and evaluated the verdicts of our child judges.

We were joined on the day by guest judge Olivia from the amazingly influential parent-led campaign group Let Toys Be Toys – who had plenty of insightful things to say about the ways the toys were presented and packaged.

Read more:

• Must-have Christmas toys for 2016
• The best toys for 2 year olds
• 10 of the best toys for 8-year-olds
• See our child reviewers rate toys on our MadeForMums Toys YouTube channel