The more children I have, the more I become aware of how over commercialized our culture is in all the toys and gadgets available on the market to entertain and literally over stimulate your baby. Babies are perfectly content to enjoy the things they find all around the house – from the sippy cup to the shoe. When my third little baby Eden arrived, I wanted to find some other creative ideas for her toy collection. As I shared a few days ago, I stumbled upon the idea of creating a Montessori inspired treasure basket with lots of fun things to explore from around our home and in nature. With this little treasure basket she can use all her senses and make discoveries independently. I love that! All at no cost, natural, and safe for baby’s budding senses. I just collected things I already had around the house and gathered them together in her own little treasure basket. This treasure basket is perfect for babies 6 months and older as they are just learning to sit up and can pull things out of the basket on their own. Eden has been quite delighted with her little collection and is entertained for extensive periods of time. The most different textures and colors you can find the better!
Here are the items in our basket:
A wooden salad spoon
A metal baby spoon
A toy metal whisk
a ball of wool yarn
a scrap of cotton flannel
a baby food jar with rice (she loves sucking and shaking this jar best!)
a toothbrush (who would have thought this would be so much fun?)
An old bracelet
A round block of wood
A new sponge
Hair comb
Wooden bell rattle
A large piece of cork (a large bottle cork has brought lots of delight)
And of course her Sophie giraffe…the one little baby toy I did buy and we love!
Other items on the list to collect:
A fancy napkin ring
A wooden bell
Painted wooden egg
Wooden keys
For a wealth of further ideas for your own baskets, check out How to Make A Treasure Basket for your Baby.
Please use your own judgement as to what you would like to give your child. It may be best to use items under parent supervision. I cannot guarantee the safety of these items.
I really appreciated this post. It just reinforced how little we need in terms of more “stuff” for our kids. Our 3rd son just turned 1 year old, and received gift cards to a big toy store. I still haven’t used them because I’ve seen what happens with all of the toys our older sons have – they get played with and tossed aside (except for building toys or cars). The funny thing is that son #3′s favorite toy is an empty gallon-sized milk jug. He loves to flip it and bounce it across the kitchen floor. But I want to make a basket of sensory items too – I think he would really like it.
thanks so much for the mention and links! i’m so happy to hear someone else was as excited about this idea as i was! xo
I love your ideas, Lindsay, but I did read that keys and store receipts (random!) are two items that have high levels of BPA. I used to let my toddler play with my keys, but not anymore.
Just a quick word of caution about anything with a long handle…it can puncture right thru the back of your child’s throat if the child falls or even if they lean forward while playing on the floor with any long handled object in their mouth. I cringe to look at pictures of my first child teething happily on a wooden mixing spoon. Because a short time later, a lady who noticed I was letting him (a one year old at the time) chew on a toothbrush, told me of a little one that accidentally fell forward while a toothbrush was in his mouth and it punctured deep thru the back of his throat, a very serious injury. I heeded her loving warning and I now personally wouldn’t put things like a toothbrush or spoon in reach of any baby/toddler anymore, except when being used for it’s intended purpose, with supervision. but that is me.
I do think this treasure basket idea is a perfect idea for my little 5 month old daughter right now! I know she will love it so much! I would just substitute some of the items that I don’t feel comfortable with. Perhaps a short handled soft scrub brush instead of a toothbrush, and a small wooden bowl instead of a wooden mixing spoons.
Thanks for the great idea!
Loved this article as I have a 6 month old who is discovering new things daily!
Question: where did you find some of the wooden toys you mentioned (wooden keys, bell, rattle)? We live in a small town where I haven’t been able to find these things. Do you have an online recommendation?
This little beauty looks a lot like her handsome older brother!! Great post!
I love Montessori treasure baskets! I spy the little plum I made ages ago, in the photo, too.
Fun!
Blessings,
Michele
Yes, indeed! She plays with that little plum all the time! Thanks dear!
This is also a good idea to expose adopted children with sensory delays. Thanks!
I love the home grown toys and I used them in the 70s and 80s with my babies.
But I would like to caution Moms to use care when letting the crawling and toddling babies play with long things, such as spoons, that could go down their throat if they fell on them.
My husband was home with the kids when I was at church, and among the toys my crawling son played with was a Tupperware melon baller. He was crawling and fell on it and it became stuck in his throat. He couldn’t breathe and my husband had to pull it out.
When my grandbabies came along, I told my daughter to please not let her sons play with her wooden spoons unless she was supervising. It can happen so fast.
So Moms, please be careful when letting your babies play with spoons and long things from your kitchen drawers.
Thank you Nana to 9! So true, and definitely a great reminder. I’m so sorry about what happened to your son, that must have been awful and thank God he’s ok
I let my son play with wooden spoons and spatulas and am usually supervising, but you’ve reminded me to be even more diligent in my supervision.
Thanks again and God bless..
Thank you for sharing that, Nana to 9, I feel the same way
And there are so many other fun things to let them play with that are safer! Thanks again!
I am so going to put one of these together this week for my 8 month old. I know he would love it! Thanks for a great idea.
Lindsay, you must be pretty tough to withstand all the critical comments (and I’m sure there are more that the rest of us don’t see)! I could never be a blogger
Anyway, this post brought to mind a big problem we have concerning toys, and I am wondering if you’ve ever had the same problem or if you know of a solution. I would LOVE for my kids to have a minimal and simple collection of toys, but their grandparents AND 2 sets of grandparents AND aunts see things differently. Every Christmas and birthday (and even Valentine’s and Easter) we are absolutely bombarded with big, colorful, noisy, plastic things. Our children are 5, 3, 1, and #4 on the way any day now, so, as you can imagine, we are feeling a bit overwhelmed. Our families know our feelings, but cannot seem to resist trying to make the kids happy. (They don’t seem to understand that this kind of toy loses its appeal pretty quickly anyway.) I wonder if you (or anyone reading this) have any suggestions???
We have a 4yo, a 2yo and one on the way, and ILs who lavish the boys with every kind of cheap plastic toy they see. They’re slowly starting to take note of the baskets of toys we do have out in the play area which are all open end and wooden, metal or cloth (except for the basket of animals – most of them are plastic), and the gifts we’re getting are slowly starting to change but anyway we just say thankyou and leave the new stuff out for the boys for a couple of weeks then anything broken gets binned (and most of it breaks really fast) and the rest goes to bless the local opshop
Its a big plus that nobody gets hurt feelings or upset about being forced into anything, the boys develop their own opinions about what toys they appreciate, and we haven’t had to say anything 
HTH!
I’m glad you specified “new” sponge!
Okay, thanks. I really appreciate your posts!
We joke around now about little ones’ toys (our girls are 20 and 17 now) and often say that all they really needed to play with was a clothes basket, a cardboard box, some scarves and stuff from the kitchen!
What a fantastic idea. It seems so amazingly simple, yet I never would have thought of it! This is right in step with my desire/efforts to simplify our lives. Thanks!
Hi Lindsay, thanks for the great ideas! I was wondering if you’ve done any research as to the safety of CD/DVD material composition. My baby chews on everything and I have been googling to find out if a cd is okay for her to chew on but haven’t found any answers (they all pertAin to cd content). My girl is kind of hard on things (and she loved the cd when I tried it out)!
Another great post Lindsay! My baby doesn’t even like toys! She would much rather play with a spoon.
I find that it also helps to keep a couple of different boxes around the house – one in his room, one in the living room, etc. And also to cycle out some of the items as they eventually get bored of the same items after the novelty wears off
Love this idea! Thank you so much! Just finished wandering around the house picking stuff out to add to the basket: tennis ball, old baby bottle (he loves squeezing the nipple!), photographs of loved ones I don’t mind him bending up, whisk, makeup brush, mesh laundry bag, etc. The list goes on forever! He’s been going through that “needy” phase lately which none of the lights and sounds toys seem to distract, but he has now clocked in a good thirty minutes of exploring his basket without even scratching the surface!
haha makeup brush… I love it! The ideas are endless
Dear Lindsay,
I am constantly amazed at what my two kids find entertaining! With number 3 coming along and knowing that I don’t want an influx of baby toys this is perfect. I have heard of the idea before, but never seen such a practical list. And the WOODEN keys sound perfect! Thanks for the inspiration.
Abbi
my kids are long past this stage but I love the sensory basket idea for the grandkids when that day comes in the future. However, as another commenter has already posted, I do worry about the wine corks being a choking hazard or that smaller chunks would come off once the baby had teeth and could bite into them. Is the general rule of thumb still the toilet paper tube test?
You might want to read the 1-star reviews for the giraffe. There have been some very scary choking near-misses with it. We bought one of the other shapes by that company that doesn’t have the long skinny parts to get stuck in throats.
We haven’t had any problems with it at all. The legs are thick and very difficult to go far down her mouth.
Great post! The first sentence rang especially true for me, although this is our first child. The funny thing is HE is the one who taught me that he really doesn’t need or want any of the shiny, loud, colorful toys and gadgets. He actually prefers random items he finds around the house – it’s quite hilarious when friends come to visit and he’s sitting in his little corner playing with his “toys” which usually include wooden spoons, toilet paper rolls, 2 liter bottles, plastic measuring cups, etc. I always get the “really? THOSE are his toys? why don’t you buy hm REAL toys?” look LOL. We have a running joke that before we send items to the recycle bin, we run them through his toy box first
I actually have been meaning to blog about this very fact for quite a while now and you’ve inspired me to get back to work on that post, so thanks
Oh, and we have Sophie too – she’s probably the only “real” toy that is a big hit in our house!
lol we get that look too. There’s a lot of social pressure to buy kids fancy toys
Funny how God works all things together for the good! I completely agree with the over stimulation from commercialized baby toys.. The simpler the better.
I learned early on with our little girl how simple she was and didn’t NEED all the light up musical/talking stuff. My grandma used to sit us in the floor with a pot & wooden spoon & maybe something in it.. I’ve adopted something similar for our baby. Then seeing this post encourages me.
How do you deter the other family members or friends, who dont see things quite the same, from purchasing the noisy over stimulating flash toys in a polite manner? Or is there a polite manner? Our little ones first birthday is approaching, we have a large family, we have a different mentality than Most of the family & they don’t understand our preference for natural choices a lot of times, and I know she will be overly lavished with those toys. My personal preference would be that they come to the party with practical gifts (if any) or natural simple toys.. I don’t want to have a baby room full of toys she could honestly care less about. I’ve struggled finding the answer to my question and the best one I’ve run across is giving them a gift list.. That seems a little demanding, but maybe I’m being too timid. Help? I would really appreciate a post on how to do this kindly & Godly, or if at all, if youve ever dealt with it.
Thanks!
Your entire second paragraph could’ve been written by me! I know exactly what you mean and would love to know how others have handled this very situation. It’s so hard to be assertive with our lifestyle choice without offending or upsetting our loved ones, who don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with everything that we do.
Good luck and God bless
I can totally relate – we have an overabundance of toys, much of which don’t ever get played with. Unless someone asks what you’d prefer, gift-wise, I believe the polite thing to do is just say “thank-you” and if necessary send the toy along to the church nursery or donate it to another place. While your lifestyle tends towards simple and natural, not everyone agrees with or believes in it, and it’s not worth straining relationships over. Maybe someone else has other advice/solutions?
I agree with what you said, Robyn. I would do the same!
Great idea!
We save all our wine corks and my daughter played with them a lot when she was little. Older kids would come over and find it absolutely hilarious that our toddler played with wine corks. They’d also be very concerned when she’d put them in her mouth because she might get some wine off them and get drunk!
loved this idea, Lindsay!
This is such a great idea! I wish I had done it with our ilttle guy, but I’ll do it for our next baby!
A word of caution on the CD, though — I let my son play with an old CD, and then one day the shiny coating on the top started coming off in his mouth! Fishing bits of silvery whatever-it-was out of his mouth was not fun
I’m sure not all CDs do that, but you may want to check.
Your blog is such a great resource for creative homemaking ideas — thank you for taking the time to share your ideas with us!
Blessings,
Shannon
Thanks! This is a fun idea. Our little man is just 5 months old and becoming quite the little explorer of anything he can reach. It is amazing the things that babies love and think are the most fascinating. I love watching him discover God’s world around him. Again, thank you!