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Manhattan Toy Put & Peek Birdhouse Review: Why It's Perfect for Auditory Play with Hard of Hearing Babies
Highly recommend: the Put & Peek Birdhouse has been one of our most-used toys for auditory learning. Here's every activity we've tried.
What Makes This Toy Work for Hard of Hearing Babies
The Put & Peek Birdhouse by Manhattan Toy hits several things we look for in a toy for a baby in speech therapy for hearing loss. It's soft—which means baby can be left alone with it to explore freely, without supervision worries. It doesn't light up or make annoying electronic sounds, which keeps the listening environment clean for activities we do with our voices. The birds make a gentle rattle sound that hasn't distracted from our sessions. (Though, if you need total silence you could always use our rattle removal trick!)
The different panels and doors offer a genuinely varied landscape for activities. There's a daytime side and a nighttime side, multiple birds in different colors, and a slot for dropping the birds in and pulling them out again. Cause-and-effect toys—where a child's action produces a visible result—are particularly valuable for auditory learning because they create natural opportunities to narrate, comment, and build turn-taking vocabulary.
It won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal, which is a credible independent award for imaginative toy design. We'd have recommended it regardless, but that doesn't hurt.
This toy has become a mainstay for us.
How We Use It: Language & Listening Activities We Do with the Put & Peek Birdhouse
Over the early years with our daughter, our speech-language pathology team guided us through more activities with this one toy than we expected.
Here's our running list:
- In and Out / Open and Close - The simplest activity—drop a bird in, pull one out. We narrated "in! out! open! close!" with each action, building vocabulary through repetition in a way that feels like play.
- Tweet Tweet sounds / bird calls - Holding up a bird and making a sound "tweet! tweet!" or "caw! caw!" is a natural auditory prompt.
- Songs with hand motions - Bird-related songs, with flying hand motions—"Bluebird, Bluebird, Out my Window" is a favorite—sung while flying a bird through the windows and doors. "Two Little Blackbirds" works well too. Songs with physical motions help reinforce vocabulary while giving baby a visual anchor for the sound.
- Sharing and turn taking - "My turn, your turn," and dropping birds in and out is a perfect vehicle for it.
- Colors - The birds come in distinct colors, making them a natural starting point for early color vocabulary—"the red bird goes in! where's the blue bird?"
- The nighttime panel - The dark side of the birdhouse has become part of our bedtime routine: we put the birds to sleep with a little goodnight poem before lights out. It sounds small, but having a toy that bridges play and routine adds genuine richness to daily language opportunities.
Is It Worth The Price?
We received our as a gift from family, which made it easy. It's one of our more expensive baby toys, but, looking back, we'd have bought it ourselves without hesitation. We got a great range of activities from it and have used it on a daily basis.
Age range: Manhattan Toys lists it as 9 months and up. We'd agree—the panel manipulation and bird-dropping require some fine motor development.
Highly recommend! One of our most-used toys.
Building Your Auditory Play Collection: More From Manhattan Toys!
Looking to build your auditory play collection?
We're in love with Cottontail Cottage—another super-cute "spill and fill" toy from Manhattan Toys. Like the Birdhouse, Cottontail Cottage features super-soft toy animals (bunnies!) and a soft container hutch with a fold-down door. We love the large colorful numbers on the flaps and the woodland illustrations of vines, clouds, mushrooms, and more.
Most of our Birdhouse activities would carry over well to the Cottage. And how about some bunny-specific routines? "Hop! Hop! Hop!"
