It is always thrilling to come upon a way to occupy curious babies for any decent length of time. So, I thought I had best share this with my fellow busy moms!
This morning, I set Chubby down to play with my plastic containers in the kitchen (see open cupboard door and evidence in the background on the floor). Princess decided Chubby would like a drink of water and so gave him his sippy cup. This would have been fine except for the fact that the cup didn't have its stopper in.
When I turned around, there sat Chubby, as happy as could be, in a small puddle of water. He was busy sprinkling droplets of water while shaking the cup up and down vigorously. Not one to spoil baby's fun, I grabbed a towel and wiped up the mess. I then left the towel by him and he proceeded to shake the cup and then play with the towels himself. This cleaned the floor nicely and occupied Chubby for at least a good 30+ minutes! Woohoo!
Here's a couple other ideas, since we all know that babies never want to play with baby toys! And I won't even insult your intelligence by reminding you that you obviously still need to watch baby carefully even when they are playing these fun things.
1. Allow baby to throw an empty water bottle or ball or even any object that makes a good sound when it hits tile. Baby will throw and chase the object for quite a while.
2. Get a VHS video case and allow baby to open and shut it. The plastic cases that house many Disney movies won't hurt their fingers if they happen to put a finger in while closing it (unlike that kitchen drawer!)
3. Let baby push the umbrella stroller around the house.
4. Pots and pans and lids provide oodles of fun.
5. Large straws (that come with the big drink cups) can be fun with their accompanying lids as baby can push the straw up and down in the hole. Or, they may enjoy using the straw by itself in an accordian style fashion.
6. Stack up blocks, legos, cups (anything stackable) while you read to an older child. The baby will have fun grabbing and knocking down any tower you can build.
7. Put Cheerios at strategic locations around the coffee table. As baby makes his rounds around the table, he can pick up a little snack along the way.
8. Your teenage daughter's collection of lip glosses can provide entertainment for quite some time. Just make sure all the lids are screwed on tight!
9. Obtain a small bucket and fill it with random objects. After baby has pulled all the objects out, refill the bucket with the same items over and over until he tires of game.
10. Okay, that's all I can come up with off the top of my head. And, yes, I have tried all of the above methods with fairly good success.
Now it is your turn...tell me some of your tricks! I wonder if I remembered to thank Princess for coming up with a new way to occupy baby. Hmmm...I'll have to do that!
3 comments:
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing :)
You cracked me up when you said your teenagers daughters collection of lip gloss!
These are great ideas. That is a great idea to try to keep the baby busy so I can read to an older child! I just always try to include my little one in on the reading, and it ends up being a huge struggle and fight between my kids.
Some of my tricks...hmmm...Oh, I bought a exercise trampoline for like 15 dollars at wal-mart, my kids will jump for a good 30 minutes!
You'd be surprised at how entertaining the lip gloss is! hee hee!
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