What entertains a baby?

Answer 1

There are many things you can do to keep a 3 year old busy. One thing, you can use what can be known as the Electronic Babysitter aka The TV, switch it on then either put it onto a children's channel for them to watch, or play a DVD of their choice-providing it's within their age range of course. The TV could keep the child amused for a while, though it has limited time & usability.

Other things you could do are: Play a game or two such as Hide 'n' Seek, I spy, play with their toys with them. You could take the child out on a fun trip to the park.....it's fun for them, cold for you, but you can soon warm up back home especially if you leave your heating on when you go out, then you both get a warm place when you go back.

You could take the 3 year old out to London (money permitting), there are a number of free museums you could take them to such as The Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, this could give you a chance to remember some of the toys you used to play with, you get to interact with some of the old toys, there is a children's workshop with arts & crafts in it.

You could read a book or two to the 3 year old, have them read to you & help them with any difficult words, explaining things as you go along.

If you are able to cook, and have the patience, then how about taking your 3 year old into the kitchen to make some simple cakes, this can be fun for you both & also quite amusing. Beware that your kitchen will end up looking like a tip & you are likely to end up exhausted, but hopefully you will have some tasty cakes at the end, but the down side is the cleaning up afterwards.

You could check your local cinema to see what children's films are showing again this is a money permitting thing, but most cinemas have a Saturday morning children's club thing where by the tickets are a lot cheaper than normal, and this can also be found in the school holidays.

You can go out on a mission to find things such as leaves, twigs, conkers, pine cones, wild flowers, tree bark etc. Put these into a bag to take home, then use them to make models, pictures aka collages. If you take Sandwiches etc with you, it can become a bit of a picnic too.

You can make models from old toilet roll middles, kitchen roll middles, egg boxes, cereal boxes, shoe boxes etc, obviously you use the scissors & glue, or you supervise the child with them - childrens scissors can be purchased & pritt sticks can be used for less messy glue. Glitter can be used to brighten the models up, shops such as Hobby Craft will have loads of stuff for this sort of thing. It does not need to be expensive.

You can make a papiér maché model, using old newspapers & either cheap wallpaper paste, or flour & water paste, both will dry well & allow for painting. You simply tear up the paper, put it into the paste ensure the paper is well coated, then using something from the list above, put the pasted paper onto it, build up the layers, shape them, then leave to dry, next paint the models. Paint for this sort of thing can be bought from places like Hobby Craft (no I'm not on commission for promoting them)

You can encourage the child to play at 'Dressing up' either using your clothes or cheap old clothes say from a charity shop, they can then make up stories about the people they think they have dressed up as.

You can get a very large cardboard box and fill it with balloons, then allow the 3 year old to play about as they choose. You can also get the child to pretend that the box is a car, boat, rocket, spaceship, lorry etc and they and you can have 'adventures' in this vehicle.

You can get an old bed sheet or two, drape them over a table or chairs and make tents with them, and encourage the Childs imagination.

In your garden (if you have one) you can make a small bonfire, to toast marshmallows over using long sticks to put them on and keeping the child at a safe distance from the fire. This is good for keeping you warm, but should always have more than one adult for supervision, and have buckets of water near by for end of bonfire or in case of emergencies.

A summer thing is to buy a disposable BBQ and go down the beach for a BBQ on the sand with food of your choice.

Make a 'Treasure hunt' where by you place things around the home for the 3 year old to find, this can be adapted for indoor and outdoor hunting. Use something the child will want to find, such as sweets, chocolate, cakes or crisps etc. Food does not have to be used, but perhaps a series of easy clues with the last one leading to a new toy, game etc.

A Toys 'Tea party' can be had with you, the 3 year old and some of their favourite toys, oh and of course some food and drink.

You can get plain paper and crayons, felt tip pens or paints and let the child use their imagination to create pictures, you can paint their hands and feet creating pictures with those, use washing up sponges, bath sponges or potato's (don't eat after you have painted them) to make print pictures with.

If you get crayons take the paper off, then using the crayon sideways, create pictures by taking rubbings from things like tree bark, manhole covers, tables, benches, the floor in your garden or kitchen etc. Anything with a rough surface to take a rubbing from.

You can also use dried pasta such as Macaroni to make 'Jewellery' and also collages. You can also make musical instruments, with boxes, tubes, plastic bottles partly filled with dried rice, pasta etc.

Hope this all helps you to have a rather busy and entertained 3 year old.

Answer 2

sing

make faces

talk

play

rock it

make funny noises

shake a rattle

bounce

pee a boo

tickle

Answer 3

Stickers, Craft pipe cleaners (they like to fiddle with them), Magazines and Catalogs, New Toys And More. Babys can be easy to entertain.