Things to do with babies and toddlers

Colour water – Colour children’s baths or bubbles with a couple of splashes of food dye.

Paint with cars – A couple of different colours of poster paint, some backing paper and small cars are great for some therapeutic painting with wheels.

Make your own Wimmer Ferguson mobile – You will need a hanger, string, squares of card and a thick marker pen. Draw some stark black images/designs in the style of Wimmer Ferguson onto the squares. Hole punch the cards, thread through string and attach to hanger. Job done.

Tag Blanket – Don’t buy one make your own. Your can get fun ribbon from a craft shop. Cut out two squares of fleece. Hem, then join together with your ribbon tags folded out.

Baby faces posters – Tiny babies love looking at photographs of faces. You will be inundated with baby marketing materials. Cut out the faces of babies in the catalogues and stick onto a piece of A4 paper and onto the wall for your baby to look at.

Dribble Bib – If your baby is teething, then they are likely to be dribbling like a geriatric bulldog. Find some funky fabric and make a dribble bib. Can be made a simply as  cutting out a square, folding into a triangle, over locking the edges and popping some Velcro on the outside corners.

Stop frame animation – a simple thing to do with a tech savvy five-year-old. Take some photographs of a toy in different positions on the same spot, pop them on the computer and run through a photograph preview programme.

Baby and Toddler Record Book – If maternity leave is starting to slow a little, try making your own baby and toddler record book. Don’t forget the essential pages shop ones miss out: My first broken nose and My first day at the walk-in centre.

Simple Teddies – So easy to make. Cut out the template of a bear. Draw around the template onto the back of a folded piece of fabric. Cut out teddy shape. Sew around and stuff with paper. Job done.

Fun with face paints – Face paints are not expensive to buy and you can add to you collection of colours monthly. Take turns to paint faces on a wet Wednesday afternoon.