I don't know why I didn't do discovery baskets sooner.
They sound difficult to organise and fiddly and time consuming. They aren't. And babies love them.
Essentially, the idea is to fill a basket with everyday items (baby safe items, of course) from around the house or garden and make it accessible to bub in their play area. That's it. And my bub absolutely adores her basket. It is the go to play thing above so many other toys (that cost us a lot more than the contents of that basket). I would say they are better for a baby six months or older who can sit up and grasp objects easily. And make sure the basket is light weight and baby safe too as babies are often attracted to this as a toy as well.
Mix up objects from across different themes or have a specific theme in one basket.
Here are my top SEVEN discovery baskets:
Photo credit, D, Garding
I am often scouring Pinterest and searching on Google for family friendly meals that will easily convert into beginner finger food for my nine month old daughter. In my search it seems that there are many many other mums out there who are doing the same. I decided that since my daughter is not currently starving that I would track a week or so of foods that have happened in our house and share them here. Maybe if a few of us did the same there would be some excellent, practical resources out there for sparking creativity in the kitchen (and easy ideas!). I hope the list encourages you that you're probably already doing a great job.
I try to avoid a lot of packaged food and always love things that are simple. I try to include variety but this is by no means a perfectly balanced meal plan. It is me doing my best during a pretty average week with its normal change ups and routine. Enjoy!
Sunday
Baby Breakfast ~ weetbix and boiled water with some cows milk added, dry toast fingers
Mum's Breakfast ~ coffee, mashed avocado on toast and a hard-boiled egg (3 leftover hard-boiled eggs go in fridge for later. I write the date on them with a marker.)
I think the first family holiday must be some kind of rite of passage for a mother. It puts your planning and list making skills to the test and reveals the type of parent you really are. In my case, I was that mum who had the wall space above our spare bed covered in colour coordinated lists with squares instead of bullet points for easy tick-offing. The suitcases were open and piles of clothes and necessities were stacking up a week or more before the day of departure. This was going to be an almost three week trip. And I was going to be prepared.
Overall, it was such a special time for our new family and the hundreds of photos we did take just don't do it justice. It's one of those times in your life you wish an invisible cameraman was following you and later, whenever you want, you could pull out the video archives and replay the memories. I'd like to think all the hard work I put into planning helped it be such an enjoyable time. Here are some valuable lessons I learnt throughout the process of planning, packing and travelling on that first family holiday.
