an inviting play space for a baby,

even when there are older children and tiny Legos around.

Stick with me till the end and I'll show you

one really fun addition my baby is super excited about.

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slam on that Subscribe button,

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(light music)

(lively music)

The Parenting Junkie.

Hi, I'm Avital.

I'm a mindful parenting coach.

I'm the mother of four.

And I am so excited to be doing the work I do,

helping parents from across the globe

reclaim presence, peace, and play for their families.

And today I'm going to be showing you an updated tour

of our little play space for our four children

and how I've changed it around recently

to accommodate all of their various needs

and different stages and ages.

So my children currently are seven, five,

almost three, and six months old.

And my older two do a lot of Lego,

a lot of building with tiny pieces

that are obviously dangerous for my baby,

who is currently crawling and getting into

absolutely everything and opening the boxes

and pulling on the strings and finding the things

that he's not supposed to find.

So what he needs is a Yes space.

He needs a play space where I can put him down

and know that he has everything he needs to play safely

and that he can't get into the dangerous things.

If you wanna know more about a Yes space,

I have a video all about the importance

and the guidelines for a Yes space.

But here I just wanna take you on a tour of ours

and show you the types of toys that are available

to my baby.

So what I actually did was I took our IKEA TROFAST units,

we have three of them, and I used our play kitchen,

our IKEA play kitchen, and as you can see I blocked off

half of the playroom.

Well, really it's more like a third or even a quarter,

a small area of the play room in the back there.

And so my baby currently cannot get through.

Soon he'll probably be able to move those drawers

out of the way and climb through those holes.

He's already shown me that he's a little bit starting

to do that, and so I'll have to get creative

on how to block those further,

maybe even nailing in boards so that he actually

really cannot get through.

But you could use gates, you can use boards,

you can use furniture like a couch.

But anything that you need in order to block off an area,

and then that area is the Lego area.

That is the area where my kids can play with small toys.

But anything facing this side of the room

is going to be baby-friendly,

such as our magnet tiles,

things like wooden blocks that are great for babies

that he can chew on that are safe for him, large enough,

things like our play kitchen and play kitchen items,

and these squeaky things that are also good for chewing,

some empty space, just white drawers.

And we also have my Lego bag is there,

but he obviously cannot use that.

And we also have music, which we play for our baby

quite often here in the playroom,

just different CDs and kids music and stories

and that kind of thing, which we play over here

on our very old-fashioned CD player.

So I also put some books here for him,

even though our books stay upstairs.

But I sometimes sit and read for him.

I love having a little touch of green,

some nature inside our playroom.

I think it really brightens up the space.

But this is how I've set it up so that he can sit in here,

and guys, you know, often people ask me,

when does independent play start?

Well, it starts from age zero.

I mean, this baby, and all of my babies,

have been playing independently from age zero.

It starts with putting a baby on the floor

and just letting them be, letting them explore their bodies,

letting them explore their surroundings,

making sure that you have surroundings

that they can explore, and making sure that they get to be

on the floor.

And my baby plays for pretty long stretches of time.

If he's not hungry or tired, that's what he's doing.

He's playing.

And as much as he would absolutely love to get

into the older kids' toys,

having it set up this way protects their play as well.

One thing that I have tried in the past

is putting the older children inside a playpen.

Like I used the summer infant playpen,

and you could even put your Lego in there.

But their creations have expanded

and they need so much space and their friends come over

and play with it right now,

that we really wanted to make a little Lego room,

directly and dedicated for that.

And so it can easily be that all four of the children

will be playing in here and they'll all be safe.

The kids in the Lego room have to kind of climb in.

They've gotta wrangle themselves in.

But they feel satisfied that once they're there,

their creations and the worlds that they build

and everything are not going to be disrupted

by their baby brother.

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It's also really fun to rotate things out in this play space

for the baby to keep it interesting for the baby,

not by using things that flash lights and make sounds

and entertain the baby, but rather just by adjusting

the space to find things that the baby can be more

challenged by, such as suddenly putting this mat in

or this bean bag in with my baby

who's just kind of learning to stand up and crawl.

This is a full-on movement zone for him.

This is like a little Gymboree for him.

He learns to stretch his muscles

and to climb on different things in a safe way.

So the types of things that I would have in here

are the types of toys that are gentle,

that are big enough for baby to chew on,

that are simple and straightforward.

I also really love having a floor mirror,

and then rotating in and out some climbing options.

You could just use pillows from your couch.

If you have some kind of low chair or little wagon

that's weighted down that your baby could climb on,

that could be a good option.

But anything that allows a baby to start to stretch

and move their muscles in a new way.

And finally we've also hung up

and rotated in our baby swing.

This is just a simple bucket swing.

And we kind of cushioned him in the front

so he doesn't fall forward,

because he's still a little small for it.

But he loves being in this swing.

And sometimes if he's, you know, a little fussy,

not really wanting to crawl around on the floor,

wanting to be held, but I am busy, or I, you know,

whatever, can't hold him at that moment,

I'm with another child, he could be very, very happy

just swinging around in this swing for a very long time.

And because we've hooked it up with the 360-swivel piece,

and that is from Fun & Function,

I will link to it in the description box below,

it means that he can spin around,

not just going forward and back,

which is actually a really healthy motion.

Of course, you don't want your baby to get too dizzy

or to go too fast, which does sometimes happen.

But just having that ability to move around,

he really, really enjoys this new addition

to our play space.

And I highly recommend it if you do have a hook

and you have a little one at home,

swings don't have to be only for those older children.

You can have a swing that is suitable for a smaller baby.

It's a great way for them to just chill out

and have some fun.

If you're looking for some tips

on how to start decluttering, simplifying, and setting up

the various play zones in your home,

head on over to theparentingjunkie.com.

Sign up for my newsletter and get your free guide,

10 Easy Steps to Create a Play-Inducing Haven in Your Home.

I would love to give that to you.

It will give you a lot of different ideas

on which toys you need, on how to declutter,

and on how to set up your play zones.

And if you want to head on over to Facebook

and join Love Parenting with Avital Facebook group,

we would love to welcome you in.

And I'd love to see pictures of your play space,

particularly play spaces that are baby-friendly.

I think it would be so cool if we could share ideas

and pool our wisdom together there.

Now is the time to subscribe to the channel,

to share this episode out with anyone

with a little baby at home.

And give me a love in the comments below

so that I know this was helpful for you.

Next week, Team Parenting Junkie is taking a week off

and we will be resuming our regular weekly videos

with a lot more to come, come January.