Sensory Bags For The Kid Who Eats Everything
Lyndse Ballew
She chews from the moment she wakes until the moment she goes into her crib at night.
If you subtract time eating and napping, she chews about 10 hours a day.
My life is a series of, “We don’t eat that!” and, “Please get that picked up before your sister eats it!” and, “Oh no! Something’s missing."
Is it in Adelaide’s mouth? Did she eat it?”
She once chewed the leg off a doll.
The entire leg.
She has chewed through every tool that was supposedly indestructible.
She tries to eat toys, clothes, books, trash, literally anything she can find as she crawls around the living room.
She even shoves her entire hand, all the way up to her wrist, into her mouth.
When a toddler attempts to eat everything around her, sensory play borders on impossible.
Since we don't qualify for occupational therapy under our insurance, we do activities at home.
We can't play with bins of sand, beans, rice, small toys, paint, or modeling clay.
All those fun things. It is frustrating.
So we decided to put Adelaide's sensory toys inside plastic bags and tape them to her highchair tray.
She can't eat what is inside.
And she can't chew on the bag itself.
It is an easy and inexpensive fix.
We buy generic bags and fill them with stuff from around the house.
It takes minutes to assemble and holds her attention for at least 10 minutes each time.
Just long enough to load the dishwasher or gather up all the bibs and clothes she has drooled through to start a load of laundry.
One day, we used paint, rice, hand sanitizer, and beans.
Adelaide scratched the rice and mixed the colors.
Big brother and baby sister wanted their own bags, so everyone had sensory playtime together.
Seeing all three of my children playing with the same thing was a real treat.
It's a pretty rare occurrence.
The fun lasted until all the colors mixed into a sickly brown and everyone decided it was snack time.
Of course, it was snack time... I'd just finished cleaning up the lunch mess.
Kids have perfect timing.
Adelaide signed and said, "eat", and enjoyed a snack that tasted way better than her own hand.
