One of my most genius ideas yet. Yes, I will toot my own horn on this because this play wall has saved me hundreds of early morning hours of sleep. When I built this play wall next to Grace's bed, she found something interesting to do for a few mintues to an hour or more in the early morning hours before calling for me to come get her out of bed.
Grace moved to a big girl- double bed when she was 2&1/2. A big girl bed doesn't have rails to hang toys from so I took her crib apart, turned one of the rail sides on end and stuck it between the bed and the wall. I needed to put the egg crate foam behind the crib rails to protect the wall. I used to rotate the toys occassionally but these are Grace's favorites and they keep her content the most. The weight of the bed pushed up against the wall keeps the rails perfectly straight and they don't move at all.
. We started calling it Grace's "up-down bar" and that name stuck. We use this to play "up-down" with hands, "row, row, row your boat," twisting, "wheels on the bus," and more. Grace also holds on to it when she is doing an activity that throws off her sense of balance. When she is holding the bar, she is "in control" of the motion. If she drops the bar or lets go of the bar with 1 hand, then the motion stops. When she picks the bar back up, the motion can go again, etc. For example, we try daily spins in a swivel chair. Grace is much more comfortable with this activity if she is holding the bar. It's like her steering wheel on the chair.
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