Ball pits in children’s playspaces can be intimidating for the littlest tykes; inevitably there are bigger kids splashing and jumping around, not to mention the pits are deep when you’re only 11 months old! To let her join in on the fun, I made Veronika her own “ball pit” today.

Cover a floor space with a soft blanket and line the area with pillows (or you could even recycle the baby tub for this game!).

I dumped in a package of soft play balls (look for these on Amazon.com). She was delighted.

I showed her how to swish her hands around in the balls…

…and we buried her toes, then found them again!

We added some crumpled newspaper “balls” for extra texture, but she didn’t like those as much.

It turned out that this pit was also great for learning to climb up and over pillows, an inadvertent bonus.

She loved crawling in, fetching out a ball, bringing it somewhere, and then heading back in again. It easily filled an afternoon of play!