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

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

[jamielmdjs]

we've invested in lots of mobiles, toys, playmats and areas but they love to pick up anything and play with it from the simplest items. Sometimes the most fun is playing peekaboo with their blanket.

[sbruin1122]

we loved painting

[dannydog1]

Lucy is eighteen months old and loves playing with soft toy animals. She sets them up for picnics, feeds them, puts them on her trikes for rides. She will entertain herself for ages doing this.. I love joining in with this imaginary play. The other day I put a nappy on one, which she giggled at, and of course she has gone through a pack of nappies doing the same to her other soft toys. We have pigs, dolls, horses, cats and cows in nappies at the moment.

[snare]

my child loves to copy what I do so I can get a little done and play too :)

[omgitslani]

There is a kind of freedom in being able to put on a costume, change your voice and dance around the living room with the little ones! We do a lot of imaginative play in our house.

[tabbaz123]

Playing with a baby is so satisfying - I absolutely love it! In my opinion babies need as much stimulation as possible, playing, rolling, moving, laughing, mimicking are all wonderful ways of teaching your baby. I have found babies love to mimic and watching them try to copy even facial expressions is just delightful.

[gamerpigeon]

My baby is still quite small (2 mo) but she loves playtime on her baby gym. However her favourite thing is when I lie down next to her and chatter away and gently stroke her little nose 😍

[ediepop]

We love playing with a Noah's ark and making all the animal sounds - in fact anything involving animals and making sounds is a top favourite with 21 month old DS. He is also keen on pressing the buttons on the washing machine and taking clothes in and out. I'm slightly less keen on that one, when I find a wash has been paused half way through..

[Dessallara]

I have a box of toys that I keep separate and only take it out if I really need to do something, because she's usually doesn't have access to this box she's being really interested in it :)

[CMOTDibbler]

When ds was little, he loved me to read to him with lots of different voices and sound effects

[MummyBtothree]

When my three were small, they always seemed to prefer things to play with like a big cardboard box!

[Lasplin84]

Mine are happiest running around in the garden and generally being outside. Tires them out too which is great.

[Tean1]

I found playing with a baby pretty dull but loved watching them playing over and over the same toys - they both had a few that they loved.

[baconbap]

the cardboard box always seems to go down better than the contents

[Dan35]

Playing "trains going into the tunnel" is a good way of making eating from a spoon fun!

[cathryn1]

Ava loves playing with boxes hiding and making sounds but is starting to enjoy dressing up and playing nurses and I am generally the patient

[Pimmpom]

My son's favourite game was getting all the clean tea towels out (and there were a lot!) and opening them all out on the floor and lining them up.

[piggypoo]

We used to get books, bowls, boxes, anything that could be improvised into a road with slopes, ditches and lay-bys, and the toy cars would come out, such fun was had as the cars went this way and that, it kept DS, occupied for ages while I sat and had a cuppa and made the "broom-broom" noises from the safety of the sofa, one day DH came home from work, to sit on a wind-up car and to say the air was blue was an under-statement! Luckily, DS was fast asleep at the time! :)

[SSCRASE123]

I think we've learned through experience now with both of our children that the fancy, fiddly expensive toys are just a passing interest. Ours always seem to revert back to more traditional simple toys that stir their imagination and happily allow us to get more involved too.

[windowmouse]

I have a 6 week old and it is lovely to make him smile but it can be hard to think of things to keep him entertained.

[molly57]

Playing with a baby or child should be human contact only and not through electronic devices. They are not a machine.

[kay071]

Anything musical goes down a treat. Pots and pans to bash on or a wooden spoon and the radiator.

[ha2el]

I always struggle with entertaining children except where it comes to reading books to them and I enjoy their animation at my animated renditions of the action and characters. They both love reading themselves so I'm happy it has rubbed off. Of course I get involved with other types of play but it seems more of a chore.

[ElizaW922]

I find myself playing the same games with my daughter as my parents did with me. I sing to her a lot and we make playtime out of pretty much anything - from meal times, to bath times, to bed time. I love to see her laugh!