Have you played treasure hunt as a kid? Well, adults love treasure hunts too. For a baby who can’t move much, treasure baskets are more suitable to let them enjoy the thrill and excitement that comes with not knowing what is in store for you. This is not just a simple game to kill time or keep them occupied; there are quite a few benefits too. A treasure basket is simply a baby-friendly basket filled with various toys and things to stimulate their senses and develop their skills.
Apart from toys, you can also place your baby’s everyday favorite objects such as their favorite spoon or plate from the kitchen, their hair brush, comb, a TV remote or even their favorite towel or napkin. Treasure baskets keep your baby occupied for quite a while especially when you get busy with your household chores and other responsibilities. Here are a few advantages of treasure baskets for your baby and how you can build one for your munchkin
In This Article
- What Is A Treasure Basket?
- When Can Treasure Baskets Be Introduced To Babies?
- What Should You Put In Baby’s Treasure Baskets?
- Benefits Of Treasure Baskets For Babies
- Tops Tips For Creating The Best Treasure Basket For Your Baby
- FAQ’s
What Is A Treasure Basket?
A treasure basket is nothing but a small basket or a shallow container filled with random items for a baby to explore and play with. The basket is mostly made from baby-friendly material that won’t hurt their tender fingers. Be sure to choose a basket that has a height that your baby can conveniently reach.
The treasure basket will have different items your baby is bound to find around the house. You can use a new set of things every time you give them a treasure basket to play with. This will keep the baby interested as babies at this age can get bored very easily.
When Can Treasure Baskets Be Introduced To Babies?
Babies need to sit up to explore the treasure basket and its contents. You can introduce a treasure basket to your baby when they are around 6 months old. By this age, most babies can sit with support. You can prop your baby on a supporting surface such as a wall and place a basket with all their treasures in front of them and let them explore to their heart’s content.
What Should You Put In Baby’s Treasure Baskets?
You can get quite creative when it comes to loading your baby’s treasure basket. If you fill it with sensorial items, it can benefit your baby in many ways. Here are some suggestions to help you get started. You can improvise depending on what you find around your house or what your baby likes to explore.
1. Shapes And Sorting Toys
Babies love items in different shapes. It piques their curiosity, and they slowly start understanding that one item looks different from the other. As their brain develops, they will start “sorting” items according to shape, size, color, and many other parameters of their own accord. Adding these to the treasure basket gives them a good opportunity to learn about them.
2. Wooden Toys & Blocks
Wooden toys feel very different from plastic ones. Babies will explore the texture, the weight, and just how different it feels in their hands. Babies also like to build vertically. Blocks are a great toy to introduce to babies to help improve their problem-solving and balancing abilities.
3. Metal Objects
Ensure these are not too small or heavy. Babies love to mouth everything and these metal objects should not be small enough to fit into their mouths, ears, or nose. At the same time, they cannot be too big or heavy as your baby can hurt themselves with them. Metal spoons, metal utensils, or even a whisk will get your baby very curious.
4. Rubber Objects
Objects made of rubber like a rubber ball, teether, or even some toys can be a great option to add to the treasure basket for your baby. Rubber is a very different texture that babies can press, hit, or even mouth and explore. They can roll a rubber ball and experience how it can move, unlike many other items in the basket.
5. Cutlery And Kitchen Items
You can place wooden spoons and ladles, plastic plates and spoons, bowls, tea strainers, meshed containers, any kitchen items that are baby friendly. Remember not to include items that have sharp edges, items that are heavy or anything that may cause potential injuries to your baby.
6. Fabric
You can add your baby’s towels, small blankets, pieces of fabric lying around in the house, thread reels, etc. All of these must be washed well since your baby may put these things into their mouth while playing and exploring.
6. Household Items
You can also include your baby’s hairbrush, comb, TV remote, mini pillows, or any item that your little one may hold a fancy to. It is important to sanitize these items before including them in the treasure basket.
Benefits Of Treasure Baskets For Babies
Treasure baskets may seem like just a mess of multiple things. However, these treasure baskets have a very strong impact on your baby’s development. Some benefits these treasure baskets can offer babies are:
1. Gross Motor Skill Development
The sheer strength and effort required to just hold the basket or pull-out item after item from the basket will work on your baby’s muscle groups. It will make them use their limbs, and muscles, strengthen bones, improve balance and contribute to overall gross motor development.
2. Sensory Development
When you load the treasure basket with items of different sizes, different textures, and colors, babies will get good sensorial exposure. They will touch, feel and explore the items, which is very important for sensorial development. Babies will also understand their own likes, dislikes, or preferences. Such sensorial exposures allow babies to know more about themselves and develop a personality.
3. Helps Babies Practice Sitting
In order to explore the treasure basket and its contents, your baby will have to sit up and stay in that position for some time. With regular interactions with the treasure basket, your baby will start sitting up for longer. This is an important milestone in their movement. The longer they are able to sit up without support, the sooner they will attempt to move or get up with help.
4. Helps Babies Take Decision
When your baby touches or pulls out something from the treasure basket, they need to decide what they want to do with it. Do they want to explore it further? Play with it? or just ignore it and move on to the next object? Treasure baskets require babies to make these decisions, object after object. This in turn helps them develop their decision-making and problem-solving skills.
5. Early Mathematical Skill
They will learn about weight and size. Some objects will roll due to their shape; some objects will be heavier than others. Similarly, babies will understand one object is longer than the other, smaller than the other, and so on. These are important mathematical concepts they need to learn for regular life.
6. Improves Hand-Eye Coordination
When your baby touches or spots some object in the treasure basket, the next step is to pull it out of the basket. Your baby will have to see the object and pull out the right one. This improves a baby’s hand-eye coordination, which is very essential for young babies.
7. Stimulates Curiosity
When your baby pulls out an item from the basket, they are impatient to pull out the next one. They want to know what else is in there. This develops a curiosity in them. Curiosity is an important trait a baby must-have. Only then can they learn about and understand the world outside. Babies learn to anticipate and explore to find out what is in store for them.
8. Promotes Independent Play
Independent play is vital for a baby. Most babies tend to cling to parents and caregivers and want them around at all times. Treasure baskets can keep your baby involved so much that they wouldn’t worry about having or not having people around. They will spend more and more time playing on their own which will improve on their independence and self-reliance.
9. Allows Babies to Experiment
As babies have multiple objects at the same place, they will be able to examine each object independently and get a total feel of the texture, shape and other properties. They may throw each object and see how it reacts and behaves. Babies can understand behaviors such as cause and effect, color, texture, shape and more things as they continue to explore with the toys.
10. Improves Vision And Focus
As babies sit for prolonged periods and play, their visual skills improve and they are able to focus better. Your baby will examine each object from different distances which will help them improve their visual skills and hand-eye coordination as well.
Tops Tips For Creating The Best Treasure Basket For Your Baby
Here are some of the tips you can follow to create a safe and effective treasure basket for your munchkin.
1. Choose The Right Basket
The basket you choose to place the objects in must be sturdy, yet safe for your baby. It must be spacious enough to hold multiple objects at once. Opt for a wider basket so that you can add more toys. Choose a wicker basket or a jute basket. These are generally the safest and most convenient materials and are baby-friendly too. Plastic may come a close second. Using a see-through basket can also be helpful.
2. Opt For The Right Height
Choose baskets that your baby can easily peek into and reach for the objects. Taller baskets may not be very convenient or safe.
3. Choose Sanitized And Baby-Friendly Toys And Objects
All objects must be safe, and baby-friendly, in terms of textures and types of materials used. Avoid items with sharp corners or any properties that may hurt your baby. Wash fabric objects and kitchen utensils regularly and sanitize all other items that cannot be washed.
Treasure baskets can be very helpful in improving multiple skills for babies. When you fill it with a variety of items and let your baby explore it uninterrupted, a treasure basket can be a real treasure for development. The biggest advantage is that you can create a simple treasure basket at home with minimal investment.
FAQ’s
1. What is The Difference Between Treasure Baskets And Heuristic Play?
Treasure baskets are for babies who are yet to start moving. They will sit in one place and explore the things in the basket given to them. In the heuristic play, the baby will move to different places and explore their surroundings.
2. Is Treasure Basket Sensory Play?
When you fill the basket with items that are different in shapes, sizes, colors, and textures, it can be a great sensorial play opportunity for your baby. Babies will touch, feel and use their senses to explore and understand the items in the basket.
3. At What Age Should I Give my Baby Treasure Baskets?
You can give treasure baskets once your baby can sit up. If they need support to sit up, you can still give it to them and support them but do not interfere in their treasure explorations.
