Baby play ideas – taste safe activities for babies and toddlers. A wonderful activity resource for play dates for babies!

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It’s been raining in California! It’s wonderful for getting out of the drought, but some of my mom friends with small children are going crazy! Usually in California, life with a baby or toddler is easy: take them outside and they are happy. When it’s raining, you need a little more creativity.
And so, I’m updating and re-publishing this old favorite post full of taste activities for babies and toddlers who want to put EVERYTHING in their mouths. Hopefully these activities can help those of you coping with cold weather, as well – one was especially designed for snow!
Baby Play Ideas and Activities – Taste Safe!
What You'll Find on This Page
No-Mess Sensory Play Ideas for Babies
These activities make wonderful baby and toddler play date ideas, because they are easy to set up and don’t require much cleanup.
- Tape contact paper sticky-side-up to the table, let them add tissue paper, colored paper, or other decorations, then stick it to the window as an instant sun catcher!
- Give them an empty box and a toy – it entertains most young children for quite a while, and they get to learn about object permanence and spatial reasoning!
- Give no-mess finger paint a try! Freezer ziploc bags work best, because the plastic is stronger.
- Remove the middle sections of your swiffer so it is just the right height for them to help clean the house.
- In the summer time, visit a local farm and pick apples, strawberries, or any other local produce.
- Turn stickers into instant finger puppets!
- Give them some cardboard and stickers and have them create a world for their toys like Johnny’s dinosaur land.
- Try some of our active indoor games.
- Play this simple game using plastic cups
Messy Play Ideas for Babies and Toddlers
These messy sensory play activities are still pretty easy to clean up!
- Bathe plastic toys in water – if your child still puts things in their mouths, make sure the toys are too large to fit through a toilet paper roll so that you don’t have to worry about them choking.
- Fill a spray bottle with water, add a cloth, and set them to work “cleaning” the house. I especially like doing this one outdoors when the weather is warm!
- Put some water in a bin (hint: the less water you use, the less cleanup there is!), place the bin on a towel, add a few accessories and let them play.
- Make your own play dough!
- Make a felt fashion bear for them to dress up (download templates here or try these new smaller felt bears)
- Pour a little corn meal on a tray and let them draw in it or use any other kind of coarsely ground flour for this taste safe sensory play activity. There’s some sweeping involved come clean-up time, but this is a great cheer-up activity in our home – and corn meal won’t hurt them if they eat a little!
- Bring a little snow in on a tray, and let them play with it in the warm house.
A Book of Baby Play Ideas
Looking for more baby play ideas? Check out this ebook – I’m a contributor!
Do you have any favorite baby play ideas that I should add to this list? You can also share links and photos on my Facebook page, or tag me on Instagram.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
What a sweetheart!
Amalia
xo
There are times I miss my kiddos being little, and then there are the times I think about waking up at night and changing diapers and I don’t miss it so much.
Great list of suggestions.
The no-mess finger paint is the most awesome idea ever!
My kids have had so much fun with that one!
What a cute picture!!!!
Great list, MaryAnne! My little guy has never been one to put everything in his mouth (we’re lucky I realise!) but the little girl I look after tries to eat everything. I have to watch her like a hawk!
All my kids have eaten EVERYTHING as babies – and it’s always nice to find activities that work for that personality!
I love lists like this that encourage kids to use their senses and explore this big wide wonderful world!
Thank you so much for this awesome list!! I’ve bookmarked it in my Winter Survival Activities folder. :) Leila’s definitely getting to the age when she wants to do what the big kids are doing but there are some things that just don’t work well for a toddler. It’ll be great to have some activities specifically geared to her.
Thank you Mary Anne! I will be trying several of these here. You always have the BEST ideas for everything. You are such a fun mom!!
Great list! It’s nice to see so many fantastic ideas all in one place.
What a fabulous list!
THank you so much! I have 4 kids under 6 and it is hard for me to think of stuff they can all do!
I finally remembered to buy contact paper, and the kids have been had fun with that yesterday.
Perfect ideas! This was something we had to figure out with Ingrid as she was big on putting everything in her mouth until just recently. She’s almost three and still will chew on things every once in awhile, she must have a wierd sensory thing going on!!