At 14 months old your baby will be revealing more and more of their personality. They are starting to understand simple instructions and are so curious to explore new things.
It can be hard work keeping up with that bundle of energy and finding new, fun activities to keep them entertained.
This guide is a list of simple, fun games you can do at home with your 14 month old.
1) Edible Rainbow Foam
Brightly colored foam play is a hit with children of all ages, but where traditional foam is made from dish soap using aquafaba instead makes it baby-safe.
Aquafaba is the liquid drained from a can of chickpeas.
Split the aquafaba into as many bowls as you have food coloring and whip for about 5 minutes until stiff peaks have formed.
This can get quite messy, so is best used as an outdoor activity.
Babies will enjoy patting the foam and swirling toys through the bubbles.
2) Water Painting.
This is a great way to let your baby’s creativity develop without causing too much mess!
There are a few variations on this depending on the weather and your outdoor facilities:
- Outside. Give your baby a large paintbrush and bucket of water. Demonstrate painting the patio, and encourage them to create their own strokes. If you have a plain fence this will work here too.
- Indoors this works well with smaller paintbrushes, sponges, or even fingers on colored construction paper. You will want to protect the surfaces underneath and your baby’s clothes as some of the colors may run once the paper is wet and it’s a good idea to contain your baby by sitting them in a high chair
3) Fetch
This works best if your baby is walking, but crawlers can still join in.
Take a lightweight ball that your baby can easily carry, a small beach ball for example, and throw it gently across the room.
Give your baby lots of praise as they chase after the ball.
Ask them to bring the ball back to you and give them a big hug and kiss when they do.
Repeat this game until your little one starts to lose interest.
This is a great physical activity as well as a game.
4) Hide And Seek Toys
This is a great activity as it can be played at any time.
First, show the toy to your baby and then place a blanket or towel over the top and ask them to find it.
When they remove the blanket and expose the toy, give them lots of praise and kisses.
Repeat this process until your baby understands the game.
Over time this can be gradually expanded to a larger blanket with several toys underneath.
If your baby has a favorite toy they recognize by name see if they can find you that specific toy amongst all the other toys you have hidden.
This is a great problem-solving task your baby will enjoy playing again and again.
5) Peek-A-Boo Baby
Peek-a-boo is a fun game to play with babies of any age, why not change it around and give your baby control?
Give them a muslin and gently lift their hands to either hide their face or yours.
When they drop their hands say “boo” and give them lots of praise.
Repeat this until they understand the new game.
The great thing about this game is your baby can initiate when they want to play with you
6) Hot And Cold Sensory Play
This is a great sensory activity.
Take two used drinks bottles and remove any packaging so you are left with plain bottles.
Fill one three-quarter of the way full and pop in the freezer.
When you are ready to play the game, fill the second bottle with warm water from the tap.
Please check if the temperature of this bottle is safe for your baby.
Ensure both lids are firmly screwed on and put the bottles in front of your baby.
As your baby explores the sensory bottles, talk to them about the hot and cold sensations they are feeling so they can connect the words.
A drink bottle is the perfect size for little hands, and this game is a simple way to introduce your baby to some new words.
7) Stacking Blocks
This activity improves hand-eye coordination and is great for building fine motor control.
Your baby probably already enjoys knocking over tower blocks, but now is the time to start encouraging them to build their own.
At this age they love to copy everything, so sit your baby in front of you with some blocks and slowly stack one on top of the other asking your baby to copy you.
I would keep to simple two and three-block stacks at this stage so your baby doesn’t get distracted with the fun of knocking them over.
8) Pushing Games
Babies at this age love pushing objects.
Whether it’s carts, prams, or walkers they get endless joy from pushing things up and down. Christina absolutely loves her Wheely Bug.
Make it into a race by either pushing your own toy or getting on your hands and knees and crawling alongside your baby instead.
If your baby is not walking yet, or still very wobbly, pushing games will help them to practice their gross motor skills get and become steadier on their feet.
If your baby is confidently striding round and better described as a toddler these days (Sob!) they will still find pushing objects fun, and you can increase the challenge by allowing them to explore pushing on different, or uneven surfaces.
9) Pulling games
Like pushing games, babies are fascinated with pulling objects.
Pulling requires a slightly different set of skills and is a little more complex than pushing.
There are lots of pull toys available on the market, but a simple version you can make at home is to tie a balloon to a piece of string for your baby to pull and bounce along.
Supervise any play with pull toys, as the cord is a potential hazard.
10) Rescue The Ice
This is a fun game best reserved for outdoor activities as it can get pretty wet.
Mix a few drops of the food coloring of your choice into a jug of water to make colored water and freeze in ice trays.
For best results use multiple colors to create rainbow ice.
You could even use a few drops of juice to give the ice some flavor.
Once all the ice has frozen take a wide shallow tub and half fill with lukewarm tap water.
Give your baby a small collider to swish in the icy water and “rescue” the cubes.
You could use an empty Tupperware container as a safe den for the cubes out of the water.
Repeat until all the cubes have melted.
11) Treasure Sacks/Sensory Bags
Use old baby socks as mini treasure sacks for your baby.
Fill them with dried beans, pasta, wheat, chickpeas, lentils, and any other grains you have to hand.
Use a new sock for each type of item.
Fill the bags approximately three-quarters full and fold the tops over to stop the contents from spilling out.
Put all the sensory bags into an old cardboard box (The Treasure Chest) and give it to your baby.
They will first enjoy picking up each sock and feeling the different textures moving around inside.
Eventually, they will figure out how to open the bag and find the treasure inside.
12) Feed The Friendly Face.
Babies love putting things into boxes.
Make a friendly face using a used tissue box.
Use the tissue feeder as the mouth and draw a happy face around this.
If your tissue feeder has a clear film of plastic over it I would advise you carefully remove this as it could prove a choking hazard.
Give your baby a range of different things to feed the Friendly Face.
Small pom poms or dry pasta are great for this game.
As an added advantage they help your baby practice their pincer grip.
13) Post The Toys
This posting slide is super simple to make.
Take a used kitchen roll, some cable ties, and a large saucepan.
Use the cable ties to attach the kitchen roll to a vertical surface at a comfortable height for your baby.
We use a radiator, but a table leg would also work. Place the saucepan underneath and you’re all done.
Demonstrate “posting” a toy into the top of the roll and watch it fall through and clunk into the saucepan below.
Use different types of small toys then make a different sound when they hit the pan to spark your baby’s curiosity.
A variation of this is to use a toilet paper roll instead to create multiple tunnels at different heights.
14) Indoor Football
This is a great game for walkers.
Take a lightweight oversized ball like a beach ball and demonstrate kicking and dribbling the ball.
It will take your baby a while to figure out the coordination to kick the ball, but they should be able to move the ball and “dribble” by just walking behind it.
This game is suitable initially for the house as your baby won’t be able to kick the ball hard enough to leave the ground.
15) Pretend play
Your little one will love to participate in activities with you and stimulate everyday life.
At this age, they learn everything through imitation and experimentation.
There are lots of miniature toys you can buy (such as kitchens, cars, etc) but while your baby is still so small they will be more interested in the interaction with you than the toy.
Get some pots and pans and bake a pretend cake, or get a brush and sweep the floor together.
This quality time with your baby will help build their social skills as they mimic your body language.
16) Coloring
Coloring is a great fine motor activity for your baby to practice.
It teaches them cause and impact when they make a mark on the paper and it stays there.
While your little one is a little young to be coloring pictures yet, they will enjoy making strokes on a piece of paper.
Finger crayons like these are easy for small hands to manage and promote a grasping hold that will be needed later for writing.
17) Make Music
Babies love to make noises (especially loud ones!)
You can make musical ‘instruments’ with many household objects such as a wooden spoon, pots, and pans.
Add rice or pasta to empty bottles or Tupperware tubs to create shakers.
Sing along to the music with nursery rhymes, or play music for your baby to bang along with.
18) Disco Dancing
A simple activity that you can do in your living room is start a disco.
Turn up the tunes on Alexa, the TV or radio, and dance with your baby.
Teach them to jiggle and bounce to the music.
This is a fun physical activity that will tire your little one out in no time.
You can use your own music if it makes you feel more comfortable.
19) Carrying Items
You’ve probably already found your little one carrying things around.
Make this into a game by asking your baby to collect specific toys or items and take them to rooms in the house.
Use simple words to make it easier for your baby, but you will be surprised by how much they understand.
20) Water Play
Water is always a big hit and while it can get quite messy, if you use just plain water it’s a fairly easy clean up.
Or a great solution is to move the game into the bathroom and pop your baby in the tub instead for a super easy clean-up.
Use cups and jugs to pour water from one place to another and fascinate your baby.
Try pouring a jug of water through a collider to amaze your baby.
21) Sticky Toys
This is a fun way for your baby to practice their fine motor skills and pincer grip.
Use either scotch tape to attach toys to a surface, or a strip of velcro and pompoms.
Demonstrate to your baby how to take the toy off, and then stick it down again.
22) Blowing Activities.
Blowing games are great for developing oral motor skills.
These skills are helpful for language development and help to build the muscles of the lips, jaw, cheeks, and tongue.
A simple blowing game is to place a piece of tissue paper or a small ball of cotton wool in your palm and blow it off.
Make a loud noise like “whoops” to make your baby giggle as the tissue flies off your palm, and repeat until they try to blow the tissue themselves.
Another blowing game is to blow bubbles in a cup of water using a straw.
23) Matching Lids
Take varying sizes of Tupperware containers (ideally with colored lids) and help your baby to match the correct lid with the correct container.
This helps to teach your baby about different shapes and sizes.
As your baby gets older a variation of this game is to use bottle tops instead, but careful supervision is needed to make sure your baby doesn’t put small bottle top lids in their mouth.
24) Cleaning Up
At this stage, your baby is beginning to understand cues like get your shoes or put this in the toy bin. So, rather than you cleaning up toys every night try clearing them up together.
This starts to lay the foundation for responsibility in later life. Sure it’ll take longer than if you did it yourself – but everyone starts somewhere.
Even mundane tasks like sweeping the floor or putting laundry in the washing machine will be fascinating for them to get involved with.
25) Climbing Games
Young children climb everything. Your couch, chairs, tables, everything.
Its a good idea for you to provide them with a safe place that they can climb to reduce dangerous climbing on furniture.
This is also great for stimulating independent play, and with supervision can be a great bonding activity to involve older children in as well.
Pull the cushions off your sofa and use them to make a soft play obstacle course.
Your baby will enjoy climbing over the cushions and hiding in between the gaps.
This activity is great for improving gross motor skills and is a full body workout.
There we have it, 25 easy activities you can play with your baby at home. Which ones will you try first? Let me know in the comments below.
