Our all-time favorite household baby toys

If you have, or had, a baby already, you know that they would grab just whatever is in their reach and play with it. Babies investigate any object they can find, especially those they are not supposed to find 🙂 This natural tendency of babies to explore and discover stuff can be tricky, but you can also take advantage of it. Let me show you how!

Babies do not yet categorize objects into toys and non-toys. For them all is new and worth to be discovered. This implies that you can turn just about anything into a toy for your baby, as long as it is safe and you’re OK with whatever damage your baby might do to the “baby toy”. The list of household items that you can turn into baby toys is practically endless, but let me share with you my top 10 of great household baby toys. These have entertained all three of my mini-explorers when they were between 6-18m of age.

Straws: Great for babies of 6 to 9 months. They are perfectly sized for baby hands and they bend, fold, make funny noise … What more do you need to entertain your baby for hours? At a later stage they can experiment blowing and sucking, if possible in combination with a glass of water to increase the fun!
Spoons: Wow I get to make noisy while banging the spoon on the table 🙂 Also great to chew on or, in case of a metal spoon, to use it as a mirror. You can give different type of spoons (metal, plastic, wood …) to have your baby discover different textures.
Cups: As of 9 months and above they will exercise stacking the cups, unstacking them and throwing them all over the place 🙂 Preferably use hard plastic or hard-cardboard cups (no glass). You can use also softer plastic cups, but your baby will destroy them rather than play with them.
Food containers: Works pretty much the same as the plastic cups, especially if they are different sizes. But older babies will also have fun putting the lid and taking it off again.
Ice cubes: Might get a little messy, but babies love the sensation of cold slippery ice. If you want to go wild, you can try adding some food color to the water before making the ice cubes to increase the fun.
A tissue box: Give a tissue box to your baby and soon you’ll find tissues all over the room, they just love it and can’t stop 🙂 If you’re not ready for that messy, then use rather an empty tissue box, which you can fill with random things for your baby to discover. They adore putting their hand through the opening of the box and feeling what’s inside.
Cardboard boxes: The possibilities with cardboard boxes are endless. Tired of your baby crawling around where he shouldn’t go? Put him in a cardboard box with a selection of toys and you’re sure he will stay put for a while.
Old newspaper and magazines: Before you throw away an old newspaper or magazine, try giving it to your baby. Isn’t it great fun to tear the pages out and have them fly through the room? Maybe hard to imagine as an adult, but babies love it. Just be aware that your baby might want to put the paper in his/her mouth, so for this you better stay close.
Colander: Comparable to food containers, but then bigger and with some holes in it. To increase the fun you can stick some things (eg. pipe cleaners) through the holes, or have your baby do so.
Tablet: A more tricky one, I advise you stay around and put the tablet on the floor to avoid accidents. Open up an album with family pictures and have your baby swipe between the pictures of familiar faces. Can be helpful if you want to teach your kid the names of your family members for example.