Tell Fairy Non Bio about your experience of play with your baby - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

As part of our partnership with Fairy Non Bio, we’ve produced the Mumsnet Babies Podcast. There are ten episodes in the series, and episode six is about play - you can listen to it here. Whenever you get the chance, Fairy Non Bio would like you to have a listen to the podcast and join the discussion on this thread.

As babies grow and develop, their experience of play is constantly changing thanks to their still-developing perceptions of colour and sound and awareness of the world around them.

Fairy Non Bio would like you to share your experiences of playing with your baby, whether you can’t get enough of role playing games, or you force yourself into fancy dress with gritted teeth. Perhaps your baby can easily amuse her/himself with everyday household items such as wooden spoons, or maybe you invest in elaborate mobiles and brightly coloured floor mats, in the hope to keep them occupied while you have some ‘me time’.

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

If you’d like to rate the Mumsnet Babies Podcast, please go to the iTunes store to add a review.

Thanks, and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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My daughter used to love a story box, she used to love the gruffalo story and iit would keep her amused for hours :)

we love reading together, I will read and ask 'where is the.....' door/cat/dog, and my son will point on the picture, we love the 'open door' books where we look underneath, for me it helps in special time, forming words, calming down after lunch and before bed time. We read the same 3 books over and over, and my son is still 'surprised' as to what is under the door on the book.

My child loves playing with plastic cups .

Touch and feel books were always a hit he he was small - he loved the textures and colours and the sound of our voices reading the stories.

We spend a lot of talking, singing and reading to our babies. It creates such a strong bond and they are great at mimicing our facial expressions! Toys don't need to be expensive, we often have suitable music/rhymes/songs on to stimulate the children. It is often true that children love a box to play with, Matthew loves climbing in anything, especially his toy boxes and my washing basket, he will play for hours with the pegs.

My little one spent an hour the other day playing with a plastic tumbler and a plastic spoon! she loved it! x

mine loved to play tea parties, and i would play along with my pretend tea and cakes

An easy favourite was dried pasta, different sized Tupperware pots and the set of plastic measuring cups we have - pop the whole lot on a tray to contain mess and let them scoop from one thing to another. Mine has boxes full of toys, but prefers empty baby formula tins, spoons, pots, metal jars, cardboard boxes, keys, phones and anything else that isn't a toy. When we're outside, as soon as she's out of the buggy, she manages to find a leaf or a stick and is always filthy within about 0.2 seconds.

My bunch of keys is always a winner!

Building things out of Lego is a great time to spend together or if I really need to get on with something it keeps him engrossed for a while.

My sons loved playing with anything tactile. they enjoyed jelly cubes (and eating them!) water play (tipping and pouring ) sand play with little figures and animals. etc also loved playing with corn flour /water on a large tray for hours at a time.

I love roleplay games. My cildren are now grown up, so will have to wait to play with grandchildren hopefully soon.

My youngest daughter loves play doh and I've found it easy and cheaper to make my own. I like to add glitter sometimes to make it a bit more interesting. She loves cutting shapes or just rolling it out :)

Despite all the toys, games, activities etc... the most fun my son had for AGES was taking handfuls of penne pasta out of the plastic sack and tipping it into various bowls, colanders etc! I don't know what it was, but he adored that...
We're currently in the process of relocating, which is immensely stressful for us adults but endless fun for a toddler- "BOXES, MUMMY! I'm in the box! Hiding in the box"
Sigh.

Proof that the very simplest things are best, and parents should never fret about not being able to afford the biggest and 'best' new toys! x

I loved playing with them when they were babies, probably because I could lead the play more. When they were a bit older and into repetitive type stuff it got a bit mind numbing. What I found worse was when they were about 3, DD and DS2 both used to want to be completely in charge of imaginative play to the extent that they'd tell you off for saying the wrong thing or even tell you what to say first.
So DD would tell me what I had to say (in character) and then I'd have to say it. Grrrr!

The best toys were always household items, pans and wooden spoons, boxes, crinkly paper etc. It was mostly about the noise but also exploring

Mine ignored every single toy that came his way and really just wanted to get up in three sling with me, watching the world around him. He did, however, love turning out the cupboards, dishwasher etc and playing with foil and cling film...

My niece is very much into role playing games and makes us continually act out the part of Disney films repeatedly

My daughter always enjoyed playing on her own. She was easily entertained with pretty much anything :)

My DCs liked playing with cardboard boxes also, and at shops and making tents. DD was one for dress up and dancing.

My daughter always loved a cardboard box - we used to turn them into spaceships or shops!

I bought a bag of pom poms from a £1 shop and my 2 daughters thought they were amazing. They used them as pretend food, they used them for arts and craft, the youngest liked to sort them into colours and just loads of random games they came up with. I just had to sit there and pretend to eat or drink!

With baby #1, I think DH and I invested in every coloured plastic gizmo that we could get our hands on that rocked, vibrated or made a noise. Don't get me wrong, DS1 loved them and would kick his legs and waggle his arms with the best of them. I think as we grew in confidence a little more as parents, we began to realise that he got just as much pleasure out of looking at his reflection in the mirror or by playing pat-a-cake or us singing to him. By the time DSs 2 and 3 came along, we had managed to find a bit more of balance between toys that would entertain and stimulate them and the stimulation that they got from simple human interaction. My youngest two love imaginative play and over the years, DH and I have taken on a number of 'roles' in their games, from Elvis in Fireman Sam through to the demanding customer at the 'shop' - it is all good fun, that's for sure!

We love getting messy with paint and creating masterpieces using or bodies

Ours would quite happily sit in the highchair looking out of the front window at the world passing by. A nosey neighbour in the making ha ha!