Does Your Tot Need a Smock? Improvise!

Our eldest daughter, Eden (3) is super-super neat and clean. Our youngest daughter, Ava (1) is super-super messy. Each and every bib of every description ends up on the floor in 0.02 seconds; honestly, Ava won't even start eating until the bib is off!
Most of the time, I just grit my teeth, and clean the porridge up from her face, hands, feet, tummy, hair, ears, clothes, the couch (yep!)... but there are times when containing the mess would be really good for Mummy's sanity!

So, I improvised a nearly full-length version using a tea towel and some finger-width ribbon. To try this you'll need an old tea towel (I used one with stains I can't get out) and enough ribbon to wrap around your little ones waist twice - one metre is more than enough. Make sure the ribbon is not too thin, it should be thick enough to pass for a strap.
Simply tie one end of the ribbon to one corner of the tea towel...

Then thread the ribbon through the little hanging tab-thing on the opposite corner...

Pop the 'smock' onto your tot, wrap the rest of the ribbon around their little waist and tie at the back.

In truth, it did not go so well as a bib. Ava has a talent for getting messy and dirty, and she thought it was a great game to put Weet-box slop in-between her clothes and the tea towel, so I ended up with more washing than if I had just let her go bib-less.
However, it was a great smock for messy play when we did finger-painting, and also when she did some drawing with textas (which normally would have ended up all over her clothes). The best part is that you don't have to wait for it to be washed and dried before you use it again, you just use a different tea towel!
I have also used the same type of set-up with Eden when she helps me cook, before she had an apron of her own, and it worked really well. Actually, I think Eden's favourite part was being able to choose which tea towel we would use as her apron, she kept putting them against her to see which was prettiest, as though she was shopping for clothes! (That's my baby!)

Thanks for reading! ~ L.