Sometimes, just sometimes, the hubby (Danny) comes up with some great ideas for the boys. Sensory play is usually my area of expertise, and the rough and tumble is his. But I've noticed that he's getting more and more into sensory play as Zack gets older. Because he now works from home full time, he gets to see Zack more often than he saw Joey at this age. He's remembering that whilst baby's are hard work during these early months, they can still be fun (I mean, that's so hard to remember on your 5th 5am wake up of the week!).
We've discovered that Zack, who is now 10 weeks old, absolutely adores the foil blanket and the noise of it rustling soothes him when he's upset - we've got a stray crisp packet one evening to thank for that inspiration! My best guess is that the noise is similar to white noise, even though Zack doesn't respond to white noise playlists...
The foil blankets that we use in our sensory boxes are really quite big, so when we need a little rustle for Zack, it can be quite tricky to grab hold of quickly to soothe Zack when he's upset. So Danny came up with the idea of putting the foil blanket in a tissue box so we can have it on the side table next to our sofa! As a result it doesn't take over the whole room, and actually if we need to take it out and about then it can fit nicely in our changing backpack - we did this for his immunisation appointments and it worked a treat.
To make one:
Cut a piece of your foil blanket and scrunch it up
Find an empty tissue box and open it, being careful not to rip the sides
Remove the tissues (crucially putting them out of reach of toddlers) and place the foil blanket inside
Sellotape the side and pull the foil blanket through
Enjoy!
Lauren, Joey & Zack x