DIY Sensory Bottle Tutorial

I thought I'd write a tutorial on one of the simplest and most loved baby toys we have in the house - sensory bottles.

They never seem to get old. For months now, Bird has got super excited about them and sits playing with them for ages, completely fascinated.

Sensory bottles are so easy to make and can be really cheap, too.

Three sensory bottles I've made for Bird

What you'll need:

- Some bottles - I bought a 6 pack of mini bottles of Pepsi from our local 99p shop (particularly good for smaller babies as they are not too big and heavy for them to hold and shake)

- Fillings - you can use water, glue, food colouring, rice, pasta, baby oil, washing up liquid, beads, tin foil, glitter, buttons, sand, seashells etc

- Strong glue to keep the lid on

Method:

I emptied and thoroughly washed the bottles, scrubbing off the sticky stuff left over from the labels. I then decided what I wanted to put in each one. In the first bottle is clear glue from G&Ts with some "konad" I had lying around - this is commonly used for nail art and is available on Ebay. The second bottle contains baby oil, water, blue food dye and blue glitter. The last bottle contains coloured washing up liquid and some beads of different colours and sizes. I used plastic beads because wooden ones floated!

Once I decided what to put into each bottle, I carefully poured the contents in, put some strong glue into the threads of the lid, and quickly screwed the lids on tightly whilst the glue was still wet.

I would recommend leaving the glue to dry for a day or so, to ensure the lid is strongly attached to the bottle and can't be removed.

I then washed the outside of the bottles thoroughly with warm water to remove any washing up liquid or glue that may have spilled in the "filling up" process.

This is the most important step: be sure to meticulously tidy up the work area so that no beads, buttons or any other potentially dangerous items are left around for children or babies to find and no non-edible substances are left behind.

You really can put almost anything into these bottles. Even water on its own would be perfectly fine. I chose liquids with a thicker consistency so that the beads and konad would move more slowly up and down the bottles. You also don't need to use any liquid at all - the point of sensory bottles is to explore different sensations. Dry rice or pasta would work well due to the rattly sound it would make when shaken. As long as they're visually stimulating or make interesting sounds, and are made safely, hopefully your baby will be more than happy with them! :)

Again, it's so important that your bottles are sealed as tightly as possible and that work areas and thoroughly cleaned and tidied.

I would love to know if you try these yourselves and to know what you put in yours. Let me know on Instagram (GinaShergold1) and I may borrow some of your ideas when I make some new ones!

Thanks so much,

Love, Gina Xx