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DD is obsessed with puzzles for the moment. She's got about 20 altogether ranging from 4-30 pieces and will put all of them together multiple times throughout the day and then arrange them in a line. We seriously need some new ones for her!!!

Her favorite puzzles have bright colors and people/cartoons on them. She does better with heavier larger pieces (even if the number of pieces is larger) but I think she actually likes the challenge of the smaller light pieces and tends to prefer those puzzles. I'm going to go shopping this weekend and see what I can find. Does anybody have any suggestion on what to look for?

I'm going to try and pick up some ranging from 50-100 pieces in the hopes that they will last a bit. Her 30 piece puzzle we picked up just on Friday for her and between Friday and over the weekend and yesterday she's been doing it almost non-stop until she could do it very quickly on her own. I thought about pattern blocks but I'm not sure if she'd really be interested in them because she seems really drawn to puzzles with people on them...

It's crazy because before she turned two she couldn't even do the simplest jigsaw puzzle on her own. So all of this has happened in about 1.5 months, we definitely weren't prepared!

My little guy is 2.5 and he is puzzle-crazy, too! For Christmas, he got a bin that had 10 puzzles with 48-100 pieces. He mastered the 48-piece puzzles within two weeks, but he does not have the attention span to finish the 100-piece puzzles yet. The pieces are quite small, so that may have something to do with it. It is difficult to find puzzles that are challenging enough for DS but are of subjects that are interesting for him. He does not want to do 50-piece puzzles of floral landscapes!

The best ones I can find right now are the giant floor puzzles. We have three with 50+ pieces and he LOVES them. He has one block puzzle of barnyard animals (12 blocks) and he has ignored it for the past three months. Only this past week has he figured out how to do it and he has been doing it non-stop.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into the floor puzzles. Also, I totally agree with you about what's actually on the puzzles! I was looking at what they had at Target online and it was pretty bleak. There were a bunch of landscapes or goth puzzles that I know DD would turn up her nose at immediately. They did have a cool fairy princess one that she would've loved but if I recall it was in the 1000 piece range so I figure that won't be for awhile.

That was a great idea for a Christmas gift, I wish we could've anticipated this puzzle mania ahead of time and done something like that.

There are almost no puzzles between 48 and 100 piece. Melissa and Doug have a few 48 piece puzzles which are fun, then you're into the world of 100 piece puzzles. look for independent toy stores, you won't find much cute or fun that will appeal to a two year old at Target and Toys r us.

we love the melissa & doug floor puzzles!

DS loved the Thomas train puzzles from Ravensberger when he was 1.5-2 years old. I think we have a few 24 piece ones, couple of 35-40, a 48 and a 60. The Thomas puzzles have bright cartoon colors and are easier to put together than a landscape one where the background looks all the same. DS could do a 100 piece Thomas puzzle at 2, but couldn't
(or wouldn't) do a 100 piece puzzle with 2 horses in a meadow even at 3-3.5. I would highly recommend the 100 piece glow in the dark Thomas puzzles. For added challenge, you could always mix together multiple puzzles.

DD is 3, she can do all the Thomas puzzles, but she isn't really into them. We found a couple of fairy/ballerina ones (we don't allow Disney princesses in our house!), but there's not that much to appeal to girls. Somehow, puzzle makers seem to focus on boys

I agree on Ravensberger puzzles. They are more expensive but have excellent quality.

DS2 is capable of doing 60-piece by himself. But I have sit with him while he is doing it; otherwise, he gets too overwhelmed and gives up.

There are some great Fancy Nancy jigsaw puzzles.

thanks everyone for the suggestions! We ended up going to a consignment shop where we knew that they count all the puzzle pieces there. We picked up 3 48 piece puzzles for her (all Melissa and Doug and one was a floor puzzle) and 3 100 piece puzzles (1 Melissa and Doug floor puzzle and the other two were of animals and had smaller pieces). I'm curious if DD will like them or not (she gets them on Sunday). I've been traveling for work and DH says DD's been going through her puzzles at lightning speed so I'm hoping these will be challenging for her for a bit.

I looked for Fancy Nancy puzzles (she loves those books!) and couldn't find any.

Oh, and the consignment shop also had a TAG learning system with a ton of books for $30 so we picked that up too. She actually saw a little girl with the same thing a couple of months ago and was obsessed with (the poor girl wanted to play with DD and DD had zero interest in playing with anything but the TAG). I have a feeling DD's going to have a blast!

You might also try ebay for puzzles. Have fun. I loved that puzzle time when my kids were younger.