Middle-class children in the medieval west is a great social group to frame this question around! Some of our best and most direct evidence for children’s toy culture relates directly to the urban burgher classes (and in some cases wealthy peasants). These are: (1) illuminations and woodcuts of allegorized Childhood, and of the Holy Family, which is often depicted by 15th century urban artists as a comfortable household (in contrast to the stress on the poverty of Christ and Mary in other iconography); (2) references to adults purchasing toys, which implies their manufacture by, exactly, urban craftsmen; (3) archaeological finds that we can tie to children through apparently continuous use of similar types through to the Industrial Revolution.

Some of the most frequently mentioned as “bought” include rattles, hobby horses, and dolls. Sometimes doll is written as Poppe or poppet, which we’d recognize as more “puppet.” This is also a possibility, and I don’t just mean because of the (excellent) beginning of Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. We have manuscript illuminations of people playing with marionette like puppets!

Of course, dolls are one of the toys children also definitely made themselves. Typically, this was out of rags. But parents definitely also bought dolls for their kids. Purchased dolls would be more durable: Nicholas Orme notes that England imposed duties on imported “puppets or babies for children” that were made out of wood. Reference to rag dolls are generally humanoid form; I do wonder if they served a similar purpose as squishy stuffed animals today in comparison to stiffer/harder dolls.

Woodcuts, such as of Joseph and Mary playing with little Jesus in a typical German parlor, give us some insight into toys in action. There were little tops to spin, and larger tops to drive with a stick or leather strap along with developing hand-eye coordination and strength. Commercially-bought hobby horses get ridden around, hoops get rolled with sticks.

I also want to talk about the metal alloy miniatures found in excavations of towns. Now, tying material evidence specifically to children’s use as toys is not a straightforward assumption—especially for the Middle Ages. I’ve talked in a couple of earlier answers about the imitatio Mariae devotion practiced especially but not only by late medieval nuns. They imitated Mary by rocking, swaddling, and pretend-nursing dolls of the Christ-child!

However, in the case of these metal miniatures, similar items are found in artwork depicting children and in excavations associated with children/families into the 19th century! Apparently, blacksmiths, makers of pilgrimage badges, and related craftsmen would also manufacture child-size versions of knights on horseback, pots and pitchers, and dolls with movable arms. In other words: action figure dolls, eauipment for playing house, and posable figures or puppets.

This is hardly a complete picture of the play-world of medieval middle class children. Gerald of Wales’ brother built sand castles (Gerald, naturally, built a sand monastery); kids played games like blindman’s bluff; ice skating in the Netherlands and snowball fights wherever there was snow were treasured winter activities for young and old alike. I’ve also written about the imagination worlds/games of medieval children, if you’re interested.

Yes, medieval children had job responsibilities; yes, middle class girls and boys were often working as servants already in their young teenage years (generally, to save up money for a dowry and to set up a household once they reached their early/mid-twenties, at least in northwest/central Europe). But they had ample time to play. And between their own inventiveness and their parents’ care (and money), they had toys with which to do so.

Not to discourage further responses but this response provides some useful background on the concept of "childhood."