Treasure Box - Baby Play

Now that Little Dude is a bit bigger I thought he might like to get in on the playing action, which means of course he gets featured in a bit more blogging too!  Now he's nine months I'm trying to do a few more things specifically for him, I started with the tissue box pull, next up the treasure box!

Not a new baby play idea, my inspiration was from The Imagination Tree (great post explaining the benefits of treasure baskets as well as ideas on texture themed baskets) and Counting Coconuts (loads of different ideas for colour or texture themes).

This is my first attempt at a treasure box so isn't really themed, but I tried to go for different textures.  The box itself is covered in a silky material that feels soft to touch which in itself is a great texture.  Inside I put a foot file (never used!) with a very fine sand paper feel, toe separators made of squishy thick foam (again never used!!), a hair scarf, an old mobile phone, crinkly paper from a chocolate box and a soft toy.

First Little Dude enjoyed just exploring the box, then he started to explore.

And, yep, you've guessed it EVERYTHING went into his mouth.  A word of caution if you're to do this yourself - only include things you are happy for your baby to play with, don't include small pieces, assume everything will go in the baby's mouth so it needs to be non toxic and supervise at all times.

For example the crinkly paper did go in Little Dude's mouth and after a bit softened and tore off creating a hazard, so I just took it away - no problem if supervised.

However, Little Dude didn't get to play on his own for long.  Soon his big brothers turned up and decided to make their brother into a pirate!

Good fun and nice for Little Dude to have something that's just for him.  Plus this is something that I can change regularly and mix up a bit.

If you have any other baby play ideas or you've tried treasure boxes let me know I'd love to hear from you.