Outdoor play with young toddler

[horriblerumpus]

I have a 13 month old DS who is on his feet and dying to get following his big sister around.Now the nice weather is in I want to get outside as much as possible but he is still at the stage of putting everything in his mouth.
I am not a real control freak when it comes to getting mucky or anything but I was just wondering if anyone had found any things in particular that had amused their LOs in the garden distracting them from eating grass and bugs and dirt? I will obv be supervising but he is so fast and way more obsessed with eating everything than his sister that in my sleep deprived state a couple of ideas for decent distractions for him that would allow him to have some 'independent play' outside and make keeping an eye a little easier would be more than welcome!

I used to give my ds a dummy when he was playing with choaking hazards, he was around 6 months, he refused the dummy soon after but it worked for a short time.

At 13 months I think he is old enough to understand if you tell him not to eat soil/bugs/grass, I let my ds eat a handful of sand at a similar age, I said to him "that wasn't very nice was it? Don't eat sand!" he only occasionally eats sand now and it's usually by accident.

Dd2 is now nearly 18mo but I found the best things to occupy her were ds1's toys! She would happily carry a water pistol about, kick a ball or try to dig at the soil with a blunt fork or spade. When the weather was warm in the Autumn and she was a similar age to your lo, I used to open a bag of light plastic balls - the ones that cost peanuts in the supermarket, for ball pits - on the lawn and just let her play with them. We have a toy kitchen in their playhouse too and she was happy to carry around little frying pans. On a hot day we washed them all in the paddling pool with some washing up liquid so at least they weren't too dirty when she did put one in her mouth.

All good ideas thanks!I had them out this evening and just kept a close eye and he was actually way less inclined to stick everything in his mouth than I thought he'd be,still the odd thing but was able to distract him with a football and a tree stump!

Little pot, bucket or basket to collect daisies, grass, leaves etc.. Can keep then occupied for ages!