To not want to do messy play with my 10 month old?

[Saladleaf]

At the moment am a SAHM to my 10 month old. I keep seeing online about messy play, and obviously when they go to nursery it seems like they do messy play with them.

I spend half my life cleaning the floor and high chair already and don’t feel like he would really gain anything additional from me doing messy play with him than what he already gets from meals and bath time? We do BLW.

Is it unreasonable that I really don’t want the additional mess and cleaning up to do? When did people start doing these types of activity at home (also baking, art etc) if baby didn’t go to nursery? He’ll be going in the new year and id be more than happy to let them do it (and the clearing up..!)

when he’s at home he plays with his toys, we have lots, we read and we look out of the window etc. he does independent play and we go on walks on days when we don’t go to baby groups. Now he’s crawling and more interactive I just feel like I should be doing a more structured day with him? AIBU?

My kids only did messy play at nursery. Water was the only exception because it’s easy to clean- especially if it’s outdoors in summer.

I never did it. I took her to messy play classes, and she did/does it at nursery - but at home? Hell no. We did (and still do at 3) playdoh, foam soap in the bath, and digging in the garden/mud kitchen, and we did baby led weaning so she was getting in a mess then 😆; but all this instagram tray setups and stuff? Couldn’t face it.

That's what nursery is for!!

See also - anything with glitter, slime, mud kitchens etc etc!! 😂

I didn’t do lots of messy play with mine, DS1 is ASD and hated getting messy and they still like to do the same activities as DS2. I don’t keep them sterile but they did lots of water play, drawing etc. paint and shaving foam in a big sandwhich bag as they can mix them up and draw marks with their finger but inside the bag. We focussed more on fine motor skills, threading etc as DS1 struggled with this, but again not at 10 months old.

The only things that are essential for a baby's development (apart from feeding etc) are cuddles/comforting and talking to them. Everything else is a bonus.

Let babies explore their world but there's no tick list of essentials that parents must do with their babies. Find things that you and your baby both enjoy but don't do anything just because you've seen loads of staged photos from instamums.

I find formal messy play horrible and often a massive waste of edible food. I find it quite upsetting when we use food items for it at work, while I am very aware that some of the kids are in need of food at home.

I liked purposeful mess - we played in mud deliberately from when they could stand. Used paint creatively and baked from about 18 months. We had very bubbly bath times and used the natural world (cut grass, leaf piles etc.) for messy sensory experiences from when they could move independently. I find the children I work with much prefer the sensory aspect and mess of forest school environments more fun than formalised 'messy play' too, so I don't feel my children missed out. It's definitely not something you have to do.

“Messy play” doesn’t have to be an overwhelming amount of mess like it’s shown on tiktok

Messy play is just about sensory. It can be a sand or water tub in the garden with a few toys, it can be playdoh, it can be painting.

Although people go all out in these videos, you’re really not a bad mum for not doing that. You don’t have to do anything you see, you’re the parent

I don’t do anything like you see online, but my little boy loves playing in water so I let him do lots of that. Obviously he can play in the bath, but he also loves playing with water outside. Free running water from the water butt is his favourite at the moment. He gets soaked but no harm done

Playing doesn't have to be messy play. Children need to play but messy play isn't essential for development, and if nursery will do it and OP doesn't want to, all the more reason not to bother.

OP, at this age your child will benefit from literally any experience, just chat to them about it. So do things you like.

I completely agree with this.

Opportunities and “permission” to get messy (you mentioned BLW already) and explore natural textures (touching the food your baby will eat, grass, wood, bark) is all messy play really has to be.

I’m sure he is not feeling deprived!

This is absolutely spot on.

A child who spends all day at nursery might spend a lot of time on wipe clean surfaces. Messy play can be fun and it's handy for nurseries to have a programme of things to do.

A child at home who is out and about will meet plenty of textures if you let them out to explore.

Whatever you do - mashed potato on a tray or rummaging through the pine cones at the park - the focus should be on talking to the child, modelling lots of different vocabulary and actively encouraging the child to communicate with you.

"Ooh yuck. Sticky, sticky" for a baby or "Can you feel how the snail leaves a slimy trail as it travels" for a slightly older child. Language, language language

Waste of time at that age

I'm on my 4th child, one around the same age as your little one, and have never ever did messy play at home with any of them. I don't do baby led weaning either. Mainly because of the mess. I have enough to do without adding all of those kinds of shenanigans to the mix 😂. The kids are all perfectly fine so far!

I think this might be quite a recent thing - obviously children have done paint, mud pies etc and got into a mess for centuries - but even ten years ago when my DS was a baby I'd say that 'messy play' involved art materials and water toys but there wasn't so much of the whole 'sensory tray' with a load of stuff to squidge on it.
The perfect-parenting fad at that point was beautiful tuff tray diorama 'invitations to play' with model dinosaurs and rocks in a biscuit crumb and broccolli forest landscape, artfully presented next to some picture books about dinosaurs and some phonics letter prompts (and I am not shocked if that has gone by the wayside and been replaced with something to reuse the tuff tray with a lot less prep relative to the 30 seconds your toddler will take to trash it....).

You don’t have to do it at all. He can make a fine old mess just by playing with normal baby toys! And on a side note, I disapprove strongly of using foodstuffs as play items. Food is a valuable and costly resource, and I find it unconscionable to use for anything except nourishment.

My reason for not doing baby led weaning was the mess. I was much happier spoon feeding them jars and pouches. They have grown up eating everything and anything without being messy eaters.

You absolutely don’t have to do it. Nursery will do it or you can find classes that do it so you don’t have it in your house. If you do want to, the imagination tree blog used to have lots of good ideas.

That’s what nursery is for.

I did do it at home but in ways that suited, for example I'd have put a few beach towels down on the floor in the living room (or just outside if the weather was dry which is even better) and used a low sided tray and put crushed up cereal or made taste safe playdoh/kinetic sand/ooblek on it or shaving foam or soapy foamy water with food coloring in it etc. The messier, the more likely I was to do it outside or actually sometimes did it in the bath if it was something that could be rinsed away easily. Or I took the cushions off ds high chair and set him up outside with whatever on the tray so then all I needed to do was hose off the high chair and tray and leave it to air dry.

Obviously it's doing the rounds at the minute and I think your child will be fine without it, but I do think there is more awareness now of the benefits of sensory and tactile experience. But again that can be adapted to suit you, eg walking barefoot over different surfaces and textures. Or clear sealed sandwich bags with water and different things inside they can bat at, neither of which are actually going to involve tidy up.

Or go to a class.

To be fair I really enjoyed it, I felt like it was something ds engaged with for a while so it got our afternoon in and I'd have timed it so he got cleaned off and straight down for a nap so I could do a quick clean without him needing me. But that worked for us, you do what works for you.

Generations of children have grown up without formal 'messy play'. It's just unnecessary fad, and another guilt stress to add to the ever growing list of things that must be done to be a perfect parent.

Sure, do some painting or chalk drawing on the driveway, play with water in the bath or sink, have a small sandpit, make some mud pies when digging the garden. Put some bubbles in the bath, let your child eat mashed potatoes with their hands, jump in leaves and puddles. Let them explore the world in a natural, inquisitive way.

But plonk a small child down on a tarp covered in cooked spaghetti, cover them in shaving foam, encourage them to play with cold baked beans? No, it's just a huge waste of time, effort, money and often food.

And don't even get me started on Smash Cakes!

Don't do it then!

Your child will get plenty of messy play going to the park or the beach - sand, water, mud, grass.

Touching cornflour or shaving foam or cold baked beans definitely isn't a developmental necessity 😂

Blame all this 'performance parenting' on Instagram. So many mums feel like they are expected to be doing certain things.
When mine was a baby going to 'baby sensory' or 'baby massage' classes were a thing. Especially the latter. So pointless.

I actually agree with you and felt quite similar and it has not hindered my 3yo’s development AT ALL in fact she can write her name, colour well etc her speech is amazing and fine motor skills better than mine !

one thing I could cope with was water play so a towel on the kitchen floor with bowls of water, sponges etc, you can put food colouring in or ice cubes. Water dries and isn’t sticky and messy.

For a 10 month old a sandpit could be good in the garden. That’s very sensory!

my dd is now just 3 and for about 6 months she has asked to colour , paint and do play dough and these all keep her entertained for a while. She sits at the dining table with her play dough and cutters or paints etc for aaaaages and is fairly neat about it now. I just whip her top off and have a cheap dunelm table protector on. Another thing I’ve found helps is doing these things first thing when they’re still in PJs you’re going to wash anyway. My dd will do painting maybe 9-10am before we head out, then paints go awayy, I’ll wipe her down and get her dressed and voila

I do have friends who literally allow play dough on the carpet etc, slime in the bedroom but for me it’s just teaching kids that their want for a fun time comes above all else and I don’t want my little girl thinking she can smush slime into the carpet and I’ll say ‘oh it’s a sensory experience darling!’

also my DD’s key worker at her nursery when she was about 1 said to me ‘listen, we do all the messy stuff here so you don’t have to!’ And I really felt that!!!

Nah! That’s what nursery is for! 🤣

Another thing I loved doing was plonking my dd in the middle of the living room with the lights off (curtains drawn!) and putting a disco light on and some music I enjoy, she would just bobble about for a bit and I’d scroll mumsnet and enjoy the music whilst congratulating myself on my baby’s sensory experience haha