No matter the reason you are stuck inside, finding ways to entertain your one year old is be a serious challenge! One year olds love to explore and move quickly between activities. Whether it’s raining outside, your working from home or it’s a pandemic, these activities are easy to put together and will keep your little one entertained for a long time!
Whether you are a stay at home mom or working mom, finding ways to keep your one year old entertained and happy is exhausting. Plus, you know if they aren’t entertained, they will entertain themselves by doing things they shouldn’t do. You’ll find them eating cat food or flushing things down the toilet. While one year olds grow into an independent, learning toddler, they want to explore, learn and do new things. Keeping up with that can be tough.
If you’re reading this, I’m sure you‘re picking your brain (and the internet) trying to figure out how to keep baby entertained all day. You don’t want to buy new toys every week or let baby watch TV all day. On the other hand, you also don’t want to create homemade activities and bake bread from scratch every day either. There has to be a balance, and there is!
With a smidge of creativity, a few supplies from around your home or store’s craft section and with this list, you’re covered. You’ll have fun, entertaining and purposeful indoor activities for your one year old to keep her busy for hours.
Indoor activities for one year olds
As a mama, these are unprecedented times. In addition to balancing all you do as a mom, layering on a pandemic and limited things to do with your kiddos is very hard. First of all, just know that you’re doing an amazing job! You don’t have to be supermom everyday, and being stuck inside, trying to survive lockdown with kids is so hard.
If you’re scouring the internet or scrambling looking for ideas, these indoor activities for one year olds are exactly what you need. Not only will they keep your little one entertained, they aren’t hard to put together. No tired parent wants to put together an activity that takes longer making than your toddler actually plays. Instead, these fun and easy activities will keep your one year old entertained and can be put together with items you already have around your home.
| Tape Pull Fine Motor Activity | For an added layer of fun, tape toys underneath for baby to discover.
| Scooping Rice Sensory Bin | You can make the rice extra fun by coloring it with 1/4 cup of white vinegar and food coloring drops. Allow it to dry on a tray before playing!
| Pasta Threading Activity |This activity is great for airplane and car rides too!
| Pom Pom Drop | Upcycle your toilet paper and paper towel tubes with this activity!
| DIY Tugging Box |Use Christmas or Birthday ribbon that you aren’t using and make the ribbons all different lengths.
| Post-It Note Drop |Put Post-Its in different groups around a room for baby to run to and play.
| Pool Noodle Play |These cut pool noodles really fun to play with in the bath tub, too!
| Pom Pom Bath | Leave the pom poms in the tub after you drain the water to reuse.
| Hair Gel Sensory Bags |Sensory bags that you tape on the windows can include all kinds of fun things like pease, glitter, confetti, or whatever you have around your house.
| LEGO Color Sort |LEGOs are also fun to play with in the bath tub.
| Water Painting|This is a favorite, mess-free activity in our house.
| DIY Moon Sand |Add a few drops of food coloring for extra fun.
| Craft Stick Drop |Jackson has LOVED this activity for months and it has really helped his fine motor skills!
| Colander & Pipe Cleaner |This is a great kitchen activity for when you’re making dinner.
| Discovery Basket |This is an excellent way to make “old” toys new and discoverable.
Conclusion
Surviving lockdown with your kiddos is hard work. When the day gets tough or you’re unsure what activity to do next, grab one of these fun and easy indoor activities. Remember, that your one year old wants to explore and learn their world, and you don’t have to break yourself trying to come up with new, lengthy activities everyday! If you are looking for some more fun (and even easier) things to do, I have a list of things I do every day with my one year old as a stay at home mom.
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