I spotted this fantastic sensory bag from my friend, Jen over at Plain Vanilla Mom, a over a year ago and pinned it immediately. I knew that I would make one for my then unborn child. Now that baby is 7 months old and it was time to make his sensory bag.
I already had most of my supplies, but I gathered the rest at my local Dollar Tree.
I squeezed an entire bottle of hair gel into the plastic bag, and dropped in a few glass gems, rubber frogs and lizards. I zipped up the bag and then folded over the duct tap in half around the edges of the baggie. This keeps the baggie closed and prevents it from tearing.
It took less than 5 minutes to make, and they maybe the best 5 mintues I took to make a toy. When I handed it over to E, this is what happened.
He mostly chewed like crazy on that bag. I guess the coolness of it felt great against his sore gums.
He did explore it some with his hands…
But mostly with his mouth.
I was a bit shocked at how much he played with this. He rolled around on the floor with this baggie for the longest time, and it’s still his favorite toy at the moment.
How can it not be? It stays pretty cold and the gooey feeling of the bag is pretty awesome. I highly recommend that you make one of these for your babe! It’s probably the best baby toy I’ve ever seen or made.
Like always please supervise your baby. E does not have teeth yet, so I am not too worried about him puncturing the bag, but anything can happen.
Need some more play ideas for your baby? Here’s a whole book of them. Click the picture to find out more!
Amanda
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Love! Thanks for the shout out 🙂 I love that you can still find the frogs and I L-O-V-E that black and white duct tape. It adds a whole other high contrast element 🙂 It looks like he’s really enjoying it.
What kind of plastic do you use for this?
It’s a plastic, gallon sized, ziploc bag.
What would you suggest for a baby with teeth? Or is this just not possible?
I think that depends on you and your baby. Some babies are more oral and chew on things more than other babies. If a baby has lots of teeth, I’d be worried about them puncturing the bag and swallowing hair gel. You can give it a try, but supervise closely and check the bag for holes.
I made a couple of these for my daycare kids. The 4 month old loved it! But the 9 month old with teeth, immediately bit and ripped the bag. I used mailing tape to seal a big area around the tear, but I don’t plan to let her have it again!
We made them just with water and non cocking hazard toys for our toddlers with teeth!
We tried one at a much larger scale wasn’t a good idea! LOL
I made one and duct taped it down to a white foam board. It worked well and he did puncture it with his fingernails eventually. It was much harder though for him to chew on it.
“We made them just with water and non cocking hazard toys for our toddlers with teeth!”
That’s an unfortunate typo.
Yes, yes it is!
You could probably use a packet of unflavored gelatin in this, as well. That way if they got it in their mouth it wouldn’t harm them???
Sensory bag looks great, are you going to do a video tutorial? Would love to see a step by step guide!
Hi! I though it was a great idea! But I didn’t like the idea of my baby chewing on duck tape. So I used a bag of Food Saver, you know to preserve food with a vacuum sealer. I put the frogs, the gel and seal the bag without vacuuming it. Work perfectly! Plus the bag as a texture more fun than the Ziploc bag, is really strong and smooth and you can choose the size which is a good thing since my baby was a bit to young to move the Ziploc bag. Thanks for the idea!
This is a great idea, but my daughter loves to have everything go in the mouth. And with me being a helicopter mom (my husband’s nickname for me) I would use a cornstarch gel instead. Safer if the bag is torn. Just boil water and cornstarch, constantly stirring, until it becomes an opaque gel. You can even add a tiny bit of blue food coloring (if you’re going for an ocean/sea theme like I am).