Pediatric toy ideas please !!

[mom_of_two]

First let me say hello. This is my first time on here. I have come to this forum in desperate need of some crafty ideas. I am currently a ADN nursing student. We are on growth and development chapter and talking about caring for the hospitalized child. Part of our assignment is to make a toy for a child (any age) that can be made from hospital supplies or supplies at a doctor's office. A few examples the instructor showed us was a rabbit made from a washcloth, a basketball goal made from a top of a box that paper comes in, and the hoop was made from the white post-partum panties, and a cute stethoscope made from IV tubing and medicine cups. I don't know any pediatric nurses, and I'm not crafty. If there are any pediatric nurses or crafty people that can help, it would be greatly appreciated. THANK YOU.

[GooeyRN, ADN, BSN, CNA, LPN, RN]

Use tongue depressors to built a little house, or blow up latex gloves and draw faces on them. (or course there is a risk of latex allergy for that) or use them as balloons. Use the long q-tips (i forget what they are called!) and glue them for making a tic-tac-toe board, and use rubber bands for the "0's" and cut and glue some long q-tips together to make "x's". I hope that helps!!!

[MissJoRN, RN]

How "safe" does it need to be? Is it just theoretical? (I have a big thing against the blown up glove balloons for instance- the AAP has a statement about latex balloons being a choking hazard and we all now how easliy our gloves break!)

Maybe a crib moblie? String IV tubing or kerlix across the crib and hand things the child could bat. A roll of tape, a UA bottle with syringe caps in it (taped shut) to rattle when hit, an empty red medicine bottle, a green and yellow Lukens tube, a bright toothbrush, a piece of Xeroform in it's shiney wrapper, add some colourful stickers for fun. Of course, I wouldn't really let a baby play with this...

On a more realistc note, how about oragami with sterile glove wrappers?

[km5v6r, EdD, RN]

Take paper medicine cups, flatten them out, color with highlighters and glue/tape to paper as flowers. Draw the stems on the paper. Glue/tape plastic med cups to paper in a Christmas tree design and decorate with cotton balls, syringe caps, vial caps, etc. A child 7-10 yrs old could to alot with those kind of supplies. Wash cloths taped into balls make great basketballs or baseballs.

[shelia32244]

Bubbles!

[justme1972]

Back when they used to have those little clear plastic medicine cups, my grandparents brought some home from the hospital (yeah, I know, they probably shouldn't have done that), and we took a sterofoam ball and took a pin in the center of each one, fixed it to the ball, and then put glue all over it and then glitter.

We fixed an eye hook and you could hang it from a light fixture.

You could also make rag dolls out of old hospital gowns. (Sock puppets).

[debthern]

you can build things with tongue depressors

also we saved the caps from saline bottles and things and made a sorting counting game out of them

[AliRae]

Man, usually just a clean syringe is enough to keep my kiddos occupied for a while! I've been known to engage in some water wars with the toomey syringes ... they make excellent squirt guns.

We use coflex on our unit, which is stretchy, elasticy neon stuff to wrap IVs with ... anything covered in coflex is fun!

Use coloured tape on the spines of your charts? That can be used to make all sorts of things ... little boxes with flowers on them (perfect for the 10-year old girls) or even stoplights for the kid tearing around the unit on the hotwheels car.

Gauze bandage works well in the winter to create snowmen and such, and also to have snowball fights with.

As said before, sock puppets made from either washcloths or the tread-y socks are fabulous.

I'm cracking myself up right now, because I'm mentally going through each drawer of our bedside carts to think of these things. And then I realize that most of my patients aren't awake enough to play with them!