Lego with baby in the house

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Hi!

Eldest is turning 5 and we're gifting her some lego. She's into it and I'm sure she'll love it. Besides, it has Elsa

Anyways, she has a baby sister and DH is worried with the small pieces.

How did you manage? Play in a different room? On top of the table?

Bump?

Put the baby in a playpen whilst it was out. Or sometimes put the older one in the playpen with all the bits.

Just lots of overseeing and making sure it gets put away after. Duplo for the baby as a distraction, but one that they can feel they are joining in with.

On the table or just supervising the baby. And if you don’t already have some buy some megablocks or duplo for the baby.

Thanks for the suggestions

One of these and playing in a different room or baby in play pen etc

Need to be able to trust the older one not to 'share' though.

NOT at the table because it's virtually impossible not to knock bits onto the floor!

We got the bars from a wooden playpen and used little hooks on connect them to each other and to bigger furniture to split the playroom into half- baby safe /not safe sections for 3 yo ds and his Lego etc and his inquisitive tiny sister… it worked very well. Without a playroom, then a Lego /small toy zone inside a playpen and free range on the rest-might make your dd feel important to have her own ‘big girl area’?

Little Lego only allowed out during toddlers nap. To be fair he does have a 3h nap so she has time to enjoy it!

How old is she? DN brings tiny cars / lego with him to play and DS (19 months) loves to play with them. I find supervising their play (I usually play with them) and then putting it all away a lot easier than having to stress about DS finding random lego pieces in a room when I’m not around.

At the nursery where I work we have zones for the older kids and split them by those plastic playpen style room dividers. It’s still not perfect and sometimes we do let younger kids play under really strict supervision.

Legos were for the dining table only when DD2 was a baby. They moved to the floor once DD2 got past the mouthing stage.

Little one is 9 months old still a while to go to be very safe

However DHs idea of delaying Lego play sounds unfair..... DD1 is turning 5, she deserves to have more grown up toys. She's still playing with big blocks but is fascinated by the other ones in the toy shop (totally bypassed all the barbies and that, except for Elsa dolls....)

At the table, or in her own room (and a parent go into her room to play with her.)

I advise getting a drawstring playmat for lego, makes it a lot quicker to clean up.

Alternatively, get a playpen and make it the 5yos safe zone (that they can let themselves in and out of!)

When I was a kid Lego was only played with on an old flat bedsheet so that all the pieces could be gathered up instantly in the sheet and bundled into a storage box
Hopefully a helpful tip if you opt for playpen/nap time only!

We have a fold away table that 4 year old can use to play with smaller bitty toys like lego - we put a sliced pool noddle on the edges to stop things getting dropped/knocked to floor.

Our youngest isn't on the move yet so that works for us just now. Once they are moving I plan on sectioning the livingroom off so there is a baby safe area.

We did our Lego play on the dining table or during nap time. They shared a room so couldn't keep it in there.

We had a room divider. Older dd had a small end of the room to play with Lego or things that the others kept wrecking like puzzles. Babies had the reat of the room to crawl around.