Two minute DIY baby gym

Pickle barely spends more than 15 minutes 'playing' after being fed and burped

and when she's not practicing her head control in 'tummy time' on the old fashioned mat I found at the local charity shop, her favourite game is copying faces.

Popular wisdom suggests she is now approaching the developmental stage that spending some time under a baby gym swatting at interesting objects would be of benefit for a few months.

I'm not a huge fan of the commercial toys available for babies - they're expensive, yes, but the marketing of children's characters and screaming "look-at-me-now" colours just rub me the wrong way.  

Yes, I understand the benefit of bright colours for babies but seriously, some of these mats give me a headache just looking at the pictures.

I do like the Montessori idea of using everyday objects to learn from so I decided to make my own baby gym so I could hang whatever I want from it.  

I picked up a couple of hula-hoops from the local pound/dollar/random tat store, some adhesive velcro and string.

I simply removed the plastic do-hickey holding the two ends of the hula-hoop pipe together (the ends were easily found under the 'made in china sticker) and used the hooks part of the adhesive velcro to tape them together.  I then added a couple of other bits of adhesive velcro to the top so I can secure various object hanging from string and easily remove/replace them.  

Place it over the upside down tummy time mat and voila!

a purse, sock and slinky

Its pretty basic and wondered what other people had done, so googled tutorials. 

They all put my effort to shame - but I have neither the time nor inclination to improve it at the moment.  

It works, and it wont be used for that long but if I change my mind and decide to make a more finished effort, or make one as a gift, I like this one the best.