Simple Baby Play for the Exhausted Mum {Heuristic Baby Play}

Today I want to share with you a fantastic way to play intentionally with your baby that takes next to no time or energy. There are so many benefits to this type of play: cognitive, developmental, fine motor, language, it has it all. Yet, you're probably already doing it without realising!

Sensory Fun in The Bath

I'm excited to be taking part in the 31 day sensory play challenge hosted by Emma at Adventures of Adam. Each day for the month of January Emma will be basing her sensory play around a different object each day. For 31 days she will be blogging about their sensory play adventures and today I get to join in and share with you about Sensory Fun in the Bathtub!

Those of you who are regulars will already know how much I love creating themed baths for my daughters. One of the reasons I love bath time with my girls is because of the simple sensory benefits-I love that something which is necessary to clean our bodies can also be an opportunity to play and learn!

 (Yes, if you're wondering I set this up on our sink to take a picture as my girls' 'bath' is actually a laundry tub and there was no place to put the bottles!)

Duck Bath

I’ve mentioned before how Growing A Jeweled Rose have inspired our bathtime before, whilst I’m in no way as talented as Crystal I’d like to share our little duck bath with you.

Herbs in the Bath

Have you ever thought of putting herbs in the bath? It makes for such an amazing, calming, aromatic experience!

We made this bath whilst staying at my parents house using some of my mother's over grown herbs and both Squiggles and Bubbles loved it.

To create the bath I just placed a few drops of green and blue food dye into a warm bath and then I simply threw in a couple of handfuls of over grown lavender and parsley.

Simple but effective!

What's your favourite bath additive?

-Victoria

Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.  You know you're infant/child best, use your own judgement-considering your infant/child's temperament, habits, behaviour and development before you play with a new play medium.

 

Valentine's Day Shower

As I mentioned in my Two Pools to celebrate Australia Day post, Growing A Jeweled Rose's amazing baths changed bathtime forever at our place. Seriously, if you haven't already, I really encourage you to follow this link and have a look through Crystal's amazing bath ideas! The problem with baths at our place is, quite simply, we don't actually have one! Instead we use our laundry trough but as Bubbles is over 3years old now she's getting just a tad too big for that so we've started to encourage her to shower instead. I've been making this transition as painless as possible by providing Bubbles with fun ways to play in the shower.

For Christmas I made a Christmas tree shower (pictured above) and since Valentine's Day is coming up I decided to make a heart-themed shower. It's very simplistic and I would beg you to forgive my drawings-I have no artistic skills what-so-ever, but the great thing about kids (at least mine) is that as long as they have fun they don't care about the presentation!

I drew the hearts using a pink bath paint made with shaving cream on the opposite side of the glass to the shower (so that they wouldn't be washed off by the shower). I then cut some hearts out of craft foam and that was it! As I said-very simple.

I gave Bubbles the left over bath paint and the hearts and she had great fun first painting over the shaving cream hearts and then placing the foam ones on the glass.

Shaving Cream Bath Paint Recipe
Ingredients:
Shaving cream (enough to fill your paint container)

• Shaving cream
• Red food coloring or washable watercolors
• Apple pie spice

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, adding red coloring and apple spice until you have reached the desired color & scent

- See more at: http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/10/turn-bath-time-into-learning-time.html#sthash.LvUGrDEx.dpuf

• Shaving cream
• Red food coloring or washable watercolors
• Apple pie spice

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, adding red coloring and apple spice until you have reached the desired color & scent

- See more at: http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/10/turn-bath-time-into-learning-time.html#sthash.LvUGrDEx.dpuf

Red food dye (2-3 drops)

Method:
Mix shaving cream and food dye together until your desired colour is reached. (Make sure you don't use too much food dye or you'll have a pink kid!)

How do you play in the shower/bath with your little one?

-Victoria

Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.  You know you're infant/child best, use your own judgement-considering your infant/child's temperament, habits, behaviour and development before you play with a new play medium.