How to setup play stations for a baby play date

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You finally set up a day and time for a baby play date at your place. So now what? How do you go about setting the place up so that all the babies can explore the different toys without fighting with each other?

An idea that you can work with is to create play stations. The number of play stations you can have depends on your space and also the amount of toys you have.

Play stations are basically areas that you create to differentiate the toys so that each child can play with the ones they prefer at that moment.

This post is part of my baby play date mini series, please be sure to check out the other blog posts. Here are the posts:

How to host a baby play date at your house
How to setup play stations for a baby play date (this post)
Reasons why baby play dates are so important for parents

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Here is how to setup play stations for a baby play date:

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1. Take a look at the toys you have and separate them into categories

Here are some categories I have:

Books

In this category, I have cardboard books and soft cloth books. The cardboard books consist of animal ones where they can pretend to feel the fur or stripes, and also a book on airplanes and ships which I got from the Dollar Tree.

The soft cloth books were the ones from Lamaze. These are the interactive cloth books where the babies can play with the Velcro strips, feel the textures, and also open the inner flaps of the page. We also bring one of them with us to the restaurant as a good distraction for Baby K.

Stacking Cups and Bubbles

Believe it or not, these stacking cups are actually from IKEA. It is such a simple idea and yet babies can be busy with it. What Baby K loves to do with them is to hit them down when I stack them up. She can’t help herself to want to push down all of the cups. Then, she will hold one of the cups just to examine it. It’s so cute.

I also put bubbles in this category because one of the bigger cups can hold them. Do be careful that the babies do not put the bubble wands in their mouths. At this stage, they will take anything and put them in their mouths just for curiosity. When you are playing with the babies, you can take a bubble wand to blow out the bubbles. They would just stare at them in amazement.

Toys that make noises

In this play station, I grouped the toys that would sing songs or make noises together. This is usually a popular one as the babies are attracted to the noise making toys. What I didn’t take a picture of is a miniature piano / xylophone I got from Walmart as well. The babies love to hit the keys and just entertain themselves.

The other toys include the Vtech Cube Box and the VTech Nursery Rhymes Book.

You want to turn them on before the play date so that the parents will not need to ask you how to turn the toys on. However, I find that most of the parents also have the same sets of toys that you have so it’s not a big deal.

Strategic toys

I really like the Melissa and Doug beads maze that I bought for Baby K. Read more about it in the post “Toys My 9 month old baby love“. I included this in the play stations because I find that Baby K is practicing her motor skills and likes to push the beads up and down.

This beads maze was enough as it took up a lot of room on my mat. If you have more space, you might want to include some wooden puzzles or age-appropriate strategic toys.

Random toys

In this play station, I just put the remaining toys that might be interesting to the babies such as little blocks or a toy fish. You can also include balls or things that you have in your toy collection that does not fit the other categories.

2. Remove anything from your play area that does not fit

If you have a piece of random furniture or paper that you do not need in the space, remove it and clean it out. It’s a great idea to also clean your play area.

Sometimes we can leave an envelope or a pillow in the play area, but it might not be the best use of space when there are others there.

When you are cleaning, also look at toys that your baby is no longer interested in because they are older now. You can always put that away for your next baby or to pass it down to a cousin or friend.

3. Put different category of toys in different parts of the space

When you’re looking at your space, you want to space out the toys. If you do not have a lot of space, you might want to limit yourself to 2 or 3 categories and have the rest on standby.

This will allow the babies some space to roam around and also have their ‘own’ space to play if they need.

I put all the toys at the edge of my foam mat so that the babies can sit in the middle and choose what they want to play with.

4. Have a variety of toys per category (you can take more out if necessary)

It’s a good idea to have 2 to 3 toys per category when you are arranging it. This way, 2 to 3 babies can play with the same category of toys at the same time. They might want to play with 2 toys at the same time if two items catches their attention.

While the babies are playing, you can always pull out more toys if you see more babies in interested in a specific toy or category. For us, one baby was playing with a book that sings music and another baby wanted to as well. I took out from my toy basket another music book so the two babies can enjoy their own book.

5. If you need to wipe down some toys beforehand, do that before the play date

Depending on your baby, who might or might not be putting the toys in their mouth, you will want to wipe down the toys beforehand. If you cannot wipe and prefer to throw it in the washing machine, you can do that as well.

This ensures that the toys are clean and you might want to do it at the end of the day as well after all the other families leave.

6. Let the babies play and explore the different toys

That is pretty much it. Sit back and let the babies explore the different categories and all the toys that you have. It might not stay in the play station that you have setup, but that is okay. As long as there is a variety of toys for the babies to choose from and they are happy, it is worth it.

Thanks for reading. If you are interested in the other baby play date blog posts, be sure to come back the next Wednesday for the last of this mini series. I will update these links as I publish them.