The following examples illustrate the position of the indirect object in a sentence. The direct object, toy, is printed in bold type, and the indirect object, child, is underlined.
We gave the child a toy.
We gave a toy to the child.
When an indirect object is not preceded by a preposition, the indirect object must be placed before the direct object. Thus, in the sentence We gave the child a toy, the indirect object child is placed before the direct object toy.