My son is now 19 months old, still not walking, crawls at speed of light and is quicker than both his parents getting any where so to be quite honest parenting on the bed is a little risky these days! If I try to play at this level then I have to make sure toys are up for the challenge of entertaining a toddler for more than a minuet. I have been doing a lot of research from my chair or bed and made pointless and great purchases.
Pointless purchases for my sons taste:
A Peppa Pig small library set, he likes Peppa Pig sticker book and television show obviously I was silly to think he would enjoy the books, silly mummy!
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| Lovely little books, not our sons cup of tea. |
A tool work bench from Argos toys- it looked exciting to me, has a plastic drill fixed to bench and when you pull the drill leaver it makes drill noises,detachable hammer and screwdriver, plastic screws that twist when using the screwdriver ,all seemed hours of fun, silly mummy!
Wenlock, the mascot for the Olympic 2012 games in London, oh how I kick myself for giving into the hype, Wenlock now sits in a toy box never to see the light of day. However our friendly mascot will be shortly making a great doggy toy so at least good old Wenlock feels like he has a purpose in this house!
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| Pointless Wenlock, poor old Wenlock,lovely toy, not for our son. |
Useful purchases made:
An Aquadoodle classic mat and three pens- what a toy! Put simply it is a mat which you draw on using special water filled pens, the matt reacts with the water to produce strong blue marks on matt which dry eventually leaving the mat free for the next doodle. My artist husband drew a lion, teapot,tree,cake,sun,Peppa pig all to delight of our son, I drew my hand and a house to lesser reaction and son drew his artistic interpretation of life, lots of chaotic scribbles :) By placing the mat on the bed,all adorning water pens,meant for a good half hour of entertainment and when our child decided to try pens on our bed of course all that there was was water.
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| Aquadoodle classic mat £14.99 from Amazon |
Plastic food set -from Toys R Us, massive selection of plastic food from fruit and veg to unhealthy junk, all here for your child to look at, try and chew, use as a hammer for a Xylophone and list all the words of food. I couldn't believe how plastic rubbish can entertain every day for a good twenty minuets!
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| Just like home mega food set from Toys R Us |
Cultrad Turtle Star Night light-at night you switch turtle on and it displays colourful stars all over the ceiling. It also can be displayed with soothing music at the press of another button, from flute song to sounds of the sea. At 19 months Christopher is going through a clingy phase and this is the only thing that stops him being totally distraught at bed time!
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| Cultrad Star turtle night light available in all sorts of prices from retailers at Amazon. |
Crayola doh -along with my sisters donated Play doh road side set with a garbage lorry and pneumatic drill fortunately minus annoying sound effects! This can be played with on my bed by reversing the Aquadoodle mate and playing on the non stick side to keep play doh from going on the bed but keeping it from being eaten, well good luck with that!
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| Doh available every where! |
"Oh Dear" -,by Rod Campbell,flap book-join a little boy called buster on a journey around a farm to gather hens eggs, at each animals home there is a flap to lift to find the animal that lives within. Any flap book is a hit with little man.
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| Great flap book and 40% of normal price at Waterstones £3.99 |
Peppa Pig "George's Birthday",sticker book-he spends a good ten minuets enjoying sticking stickers in the places of the books, some where they should be others which shouldn't but they are peel off able for the future if he wants to revisit.
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| peppa pig sticker book by Ladybird |
Tescos elastic waist band shorts -two pairs in green and blue sold for £5
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| Tesco cotton shorts two for £5 |
Tescos plain envelope neck opening t shirts -sold in threes in matching short colours.£3
ASDA value nappies- for some unknown reason they work better than Tescos or Sainsburys basic range.
Useful Non purchases, hand downs, gifts or free:
"The Toddler Busy Book". Loads of gentle activities to stimulate your child's imagination, brain development but mostly how to have some cheap, easy fun that any one can do.
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| Useful,crammed with activities for toddler, by T Kuffner |
An empty clean ice cream tub -filled with water, bin bag or changing mat on bed, play sink or swim by dropping small plastic non mechanical or electrical toys into the water, from cotton wool to wooden door wedge to cutlery both plastic and metal we have had fun doing this for ten minuets.
Tea set- donation from sister and a greatfully received item too! Comprises of a tea pot, three cups, three plastic spoons, plastic milk jug and a saucepan, masses of fun and a good half hour of entertainment every day!
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| tea sets are available every where. |
Retro Fisher Price fire engine, the ding of the bell as the wheels go round is particularly great as is the extendable ladder!
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Bubble mixture and bubble wands- our set is a bumper set of three tubes of mixture and different snapped wands, I can do bubbles sat in a chair and firing bubbles into his room for him to pop. I am loving this activity probably more than my son! Dog loves it twice as much again!
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| Jumbo bubble set |
A "Scuttlebug"- lightweight, well made, foldable trike that fits in a shopping bag! Amazing item, should be on every parents list! Mr mischief doesn't seem keen on trying to walk at all, happy to coast sofas, happy to go under and over any thing but getting upright makes him fret. So the Scuttlebug is a smaller piece of equipment than a walker and offers the incentive to use leg muscles to get around, he even uses the trike as a toddle truck, standing up and pushing it around a room. Will be great to take on holiday with us when he is a little older and confident on it.
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| Scuttlebug available from good toy shops |
"Brain Games for babies and toddlers" by J Silberg.This book offers lots of ideas for different stages, some are a bit obvious such as reading to your child, tickling a child, singing to a child but other suggestions are interesting such as hiding a little toy and asking him to find it. All very do able from any position, floor,table. I use stacker beaker cups and hide a wind up bath toy under one and take two more beakers move all three around and ask him to find the toy, like the hustlers trick only making it very obvious what beaker I put toy under before I start!
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| No idea where friend got this from but good old Amazon sells it cheaply. |
Apps- "Wheels on the Bus" song and games from Kids Game club on Apple store, "Happy and you know it" song and games on apple store, Twinkle Twinkle Kids game club again, our favourite is "Old MacDonalds Farm" again song and games for free from the Kids Game club on apple store. All free and all enjoyable.
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| thanks to lisisoft for image and to find out more about this app and others mentioned follow this link, for app go to app store on ipad. |
There will always be complete flops I guess with my son and completely attached to toys that I will still be trying to pass on when he is a teenager, for now I think my worshipping at the alter of Amazon has to have a break before my bank account does so he'll have to make do with old fashioned kitchen pans and a wooden spoon like we all did back in the day!
Finally please do listen to me chatting on a BBC Ouch podcast about my assistant Canine Partner dog, I cringe at myself when I am live but heck have a laugh :)
Podcast on assistant dogs
x
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