In these wintery months, bring some fun and special time to your child’s bath with creative, open-ended bath toys. As a Mum, teacher and bath toy expert, I recommend the five toys below for imaginative toys that will encourage your child to think, explore and giggle in the bath. All of these bath toys make a fantastic Christmas gifts to bring an extra bit of happiness to the everyday bathtime routine.

How to choose a great bath toy

When you want to buy a present that will be great in the bath, it’s important to find one that can be used in lots of different ways so that your child loves playing with it night after night. I recommend you choose a well designed bath toy that doesn’t allow water into it (like all of the toys below), so it can’t go mouldy. Also, I recommend choosing bath toys that stack away neatly in the bathroom, so that adults can have a nice peaceful bath, not surrounded by toys.
Bath toys for siblings

Do you want a bath toy that will be great for two or more children plonked in the bath together? All the toys suggested below have been suggested by families as great for siblings to play with together at bath time. You want a toy that adds to the fun of bathtime - not a bath toy only suitable for one child at a time that ends up causing fights.

Here are the five bath toys that we feel make a perfect Christmas gift. Any of these will bring a whole lot of fun and discovery to bathtime.

Best bath toy for building - Splashy Towers

This colourful selection of foam 3-dimensional shapes is perfect for building towers and other imaginative structures in the bath. Let your children pile the blocks high on the large floating base. They can experiment with shape and balance to create a strong tower. Can they build a tower tough enough to withstand a bathtime tidal wave? Click here for Splashy Towers by Spark Bubble.

Best foam sticker bath toy - Silly Faces
This fun set of foam pieces that stick to the side of the bathtub or tiles when wet is great to encourage a giggly, sociable bath. Siblings find it really funny making different daft faces and chatting about them. Click here for Silly Faces by Buddy and Barney.

Best bath toy for budding scientists - Dribble Lab

All scientists need equipment and this bathtime set of specially chosen scientific equipment is perfect for little thinkers to investigate water. Your young scientist will have a choice of measuring cylinders, a funnel, pipette, magnifying glass and a Play Guide with different starting points to get the STEM juices flowing! Click here for Dribble Lab by Spark Bubble.

Best bath toy for inventing - Pipes, Tubes and Cogs Bundle

This fun set of Pipes, Tubes and Cogs is a great bath toy for children aged 1 to 9! Toddlers and younger children will enjoy watching the water flow through or around individual pieces, or along water routes of several pieces together that other people have made. Older children (aged up to about 9 years) also love inventing and creating their OWN combinations of the pieces to make an original water run with this challenging and interesting bath toy. Click here for Pipes, Cogs and Tubes Bundle by Boon.

Best bath toy for musical skills - Bathtime Xylophone

This bath time xylophone floats on the water - just right for playing fun tunes in the tub. Younger children love watching the notes float around and enjoy experimenting and making sounds as they bob past. School age children develop their musical skills further as they focus on the pitch of the different notes. They can follow the tunes included, or create their own - maybe with words to sing along too. Families tell us how this Bath Time Xylophone brings fun and experimentation to bathtime night after night. Click here for Bathtime Xylophone by Buddy and Barney.

Those are five great bath toys that many children enjoy, but on the Spark Bubble website you can find over 30 specially curated bath toys that children love, so see if there are any other toys that are just right for your child.