Babies born to play

How many times a week – or rather a day – do you find yourself searching around the house for missing items? Whether its toys, keys, a bottle, soother, phone, teddy, shoe, or remote, you can pretty much guarantee that at some point during the day something will go missing.

 

Before you start thinking that an annoying ghost has entered your house for the sole purpose of moving your things, recent studies have shown that babies are the main culprit. In fact, Pampers Active Fit have found that the average parent spends 30 minutes each week looking for household items moved by their babies as part of play time. This means that parents spend 26 hours a year looking around the house for toys and other household items their baby has lost.

 

The study of 500 Irish parents, commissioned by Pampers as part of its ‘Born to Play’ campaign, has discovered that items go missing on average three times a week because babies have turned them into toys. The most likely to go missing include television controllers (40%), car keys (23%), mobile phones (19%), and myriad of other items including shoes, baby’s soother and wallets.

 

The most common places toddlers hide items are down or under the back of the sofa (54%), in the baby’s toy chest (33%), under the table (21%), behind the curtains (17%), in the pram (12%) and behind the TV (8%). So next time you go searching you will know exactly where you should be looking.

 

The strangest places parents have found missing household items or small toys include the washing machine or tumble dryer (one in five), the dog’s bed (one in 10) and even stuck down the toilet (4%).

 

These results prove one thing – babies are active! Babies learn about life through play and enjoy mimicking mummy and daddy by playing with household items. It might be frustrating for parents, but having an active baby is a good sign of development.

 

To make sure that your active baby is comfortable during play time, the Pampers Born to Play campaign has been created with baby development expert Dr. Maggie Redshaw. To help keep babies dry and happy, Pampers Active Fit nappies with Dry Max features the best Pampers dryness as well as the best Pampers fit. They are so loved by parents that they have been voted nappy Product of the Year 2011, in a survey of 11,300 people from the UK and Ireland by TNS.

 

For more information on the Pampers Born to Play campaign, which has identified four main types of play – active, exploratory, social and make-believe – to help provide parents with ideas, inspiration and information about different ways to play with their baby, visit the Pampers Village website www.pampers.ie/play