doll bath Archives | happy hooligans

A few days ago, I set up this doll diaper station for the hooligans, complete with a doll bath, diapers, and play “wipes” made from white fabric (more on that in a minute).

The station has been set up in our playroom and it’s been really popular with our doll-lovers.

Today we moved it all outside, and I took some photos of the girls at play.

There’s the doll “bath”. It’s too cold for water play so I tucked some blue tissue paper in the tub hoping it would resemble water.

A few empty bottles, soap pumps and shakers simulate shampoo, soap and talcum powder. I added coloured tissue paper to one small bottle to make it interesting.

Another tray holds syringes, eye droppers, tooth-brushes and tongue depressors so the children can give their babies a check up. A stack of towels and receiving blankets are handy for wrapping baby up after the bath.

And the most popular part of the station is the diaper changing area.

A change pad to place baby on, a tub of homemade fabric “wipes”, a couple of diapers, (one made from a cloth napkin and velcro) and a jar of “cream” await.

I made a stack of these wipes the other day, and they’ve been a big hit. I simply cut a few old white napkins in half so they were roughly the size of a real baby wipe.

I folded them in a way that when one is pulled out of the plastic tub, another one pops up, just like real wipes do. Take a look at a stack of real diaper wipes or facial tissues and you’ll see what I mean, but basically you fold your “wipes” in half, and tuck them into each other in an overlapping fashion.

I made about a dozen, and I popped a piece of styrofoam into the bottom of the wipes container to raise the wipes up high enough that they could be easily grabbed through the hole in the container.

It’s been so sweet to watch the Hooligans nurturing and caring for their babies at this doll diaper station. There has been much washing and wiping, swaddling and doctoring. Temperatures have been taken, and diagnoses have been made: “this baby has a purple tongue!” was one that I overheard today.

And I captured this touching shot as I stood back and observed this morning.If your child would enjoy this activity, you should have a peek at our baby bath station as well. It involves water, and it was one of the Hooligans very favourite warm weather activities last Spring.

A baby bath station will keep your little ones entertained and cool for hours this summer!

I picked up a couple of plastic dolls at a thrift shop a couple of months ago with this activity in mind.

This is a snap to set up. I used our dollar store kitty-litter basin for the baby-bath, and set up a tray with everything the Hooligans would need to bathe their babies: sponges, a few baby wash cloths and hand towels, a couple of toothbrushes, various spray bottles, a soap pump (filled with soapy water) and a couple of travel shampoo containers filled with watered down shampoo and contitioner. I also added a stainless-steel “bar of soap” (it’s actually for removeing garlic odours from your hands when cooking).

I filled the basin with warm, soapy water and sprinkled it with a few drops of food colouring just to make it a little more interesting.

What fun!

Squeezing the bottles and sprayers and sponges is a great way to develop motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination. It took a lot of strength to squeeze the shampoo out, and to get the conditioner (they decided all on their own that it was toothpaste) onto the toothbrushes, and to get those sprayers spraying in the right direction.