Young babies love sensory play and making your own baby sensory toys is cheap and easy. Sensory bottles mean babies can have access to items that are usually too small or dangerous for them.
We love sensory bags too , take a look at our sensory bag instructions if you are interested in making more homemade sensory play activities for babies.
We love sensory bags too , take a look at our sensory bag instructions if you are interested in making more homemade sensory play activities for babies.
You might also want to take a look at our baby sensory fort which we made for Daisy when she was 6 months old, this was a great fun! The fort was full of lots of sensory activities for babies, lots of which can be made using items you have in the house!
Oliver is 4 months old now so I wanted to start getting him involved in some of our activities. The older 2 children (Harry, 6 and Daisy, 3) have been loving water beads lately so we decided to use a few of our spare water beads to make these ocean in a bottle themed sensory botttles for Oliver. These sensory bottles are not only perfect for babies, but they make great sensory bottles for toddlers too!
This set of water bead sensory bottles is actually really relaxing to watch so they would work really well as calm down bottles for older kids, I quite like watching them myself!
Below we have added easy step by step instructions to show you how to make a set of sensory bottles for your baby. Our instructions will tell you how to make the two sensory bottles pictured, but you can easily adapt the instructions using different colours and objects to suit your baby or toddler.
To make this homemade sensory play activity for babies you will need:
- Clear Voss Plastic Bottles (or any other plastic bottles)
- Water Beads
- Small Fish (or other objects)
- Water
We didn't glue the lids shut on our bottles as Oliver isn't old enough to take the lids off and we never leave him alone while he is playing with his sensory bottles. We purposely left the lids loose so that the content can be changed when Oliver seems ready for something new. If you have an older child that may be able to remove the lid you will need to add glue to your supplies list.
Which are the best bottles to use to make sensory bottles
You can use any shaped bottle to make your sensory bottles for babies, but it is important to make sure that the bottles are plastic rather than glass. Ideally you want them to have a wide opening at the top to make it easier to add your objects and you want the bottles to have a lid that won't be easy for little fingers to remove.
You can use bottles of any shape and size. I personally love the voss bottles that we have used to make Olivers sensory bottles. They are a good size, plastic and they are easy to both roll and stand up. I have added the link above if you want to get a set of the voss bottles to use to make your sensory bottles.
How to make sensory bottles for babies
STEP 1: Get your supplies ready
You don't need many supplies to make this set of sensory bottles for babies, but it's still good to be organised and have everything to hand, especially if you are involving older siblings in helping to make this homemade baby sensory toy.
To make these sensory bottles you will need your water beads to have been soaked in water overnight so they are full size before being added to the bottles.
If you are using the voss water bottles that we used prepare them by removing the sticky label. This is easy to do and they will just peel off.
STEP 2: Make the first sensory bottle
To make the first sensory bottle simply fill the bottle with water beads to the top and screw on the lid. That's it! When you hold the sensory bottle up to the light or roll it across the floor it is fascinating to watch! We chose a mixture of ocean themed colours; blue, purple and transparent water beads.
Don't the waterbeads look beautiful!
STEP 3: Make the second sensory bottle
Begin making this sensory bottle in the same way as the first one by filling it with blue, purple and transparent waterbeads, but this time only fill it until it is about half full. Add in a few plastic fish.
Older siblings will love being involved in making a sensory baby toy for their baby brother or sister. Daisy (aged 3) definitely enjoyed making them and then seeing Oliver play with them.
Daisy was fascinated to see how the water beads changed appearance depending on whether they were in water or not.
STEP 4: Engage your baby in sensory play
Let your baby use their senses to explore their new sensory bottles. Playing with sensory bottles is a great way of encouraging babies to have a little more tumy time.
Oliver (4 months) loves his sensory bottles. He loves grabbing them and trying to roll them while he is on his tummy. He also loves lying on his back and watching us hold them up to the light while he tries to grab them.
Look how happy little Oliver looks with his new sensory bottle, he didn't want to let them go!
The waterbeads in the first sensory bottle move around slowly as you roll the sensory bottle along and they look beautiful when they catch the light.
The waterbeads and fish in water have a bit more space to move and as you tilt the bottle the fish will slowly move through the water. Adding transparent beads makes it look like their are gaps between the water beads once water has been added.
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You may choose to make your sensory bottles using the ocean in a bottle theme that we have or you may prefer to change the colours or objects used to suit your baby or toddler.
We hope that you enjoyed making this set of sensory bottles for babies following our easy diy sensory bottle instructions.
Don't forget to take a look at our other homemade sensory play activities for babies. Babies from about 4 months old will love our homemade sensory bags, treasure basket, foil blanket sensory play or a baby sensory fort full of sensory activities for babies.
Just remember never to leave your baby alone with any of these diy sensory toys, it goes without saying that babies must be fully supervised at all times when engaging in sensory play.
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