Cute and Simple Halloween Crafts for Babies

If this is your baby’s first Halloween, you might be wondering what’s even the point. Trick-or-treating clashes with bedtime, a costume will probably end up smeared with dribble within ten minutes, and there’s obviously no question of sweets for a baby who hasn’t started solids properly yet, let alone one who has. So what’s actually left to do?

Quite a lot, actually. Babies don’t need pumpkins or spooky costumes to have a good time. They need texture, sound, colour and something new to grab, shake or stare at, and Halloween gives you a good excuse to pull together some sensory play with an autumnal twist. None of the ideas below need special skills or expensive kit. Most of it you’ll already have knocking about the house or recycling bin.

A quick note before you start: babies under one put everything in their mouths, so every single one of these activities needs an adult within arm’s reach the whole time. If you’re ever unsure whether something is safe for your baby’s age or stage, it’s worth having a quick chat with your health visitor or GP.

Four cute and simple Halloween crafts for babies:

1. Ghost milk jugs

Your baby doesn’t need to be walking to enjoy this one. Even a baby who’s just started sitting up can grip the handle of an empty plastic milk jug and bash it about.

Rinse out a couple of empty jugs, peel off the labels, and draw on some friendly, round-eyed ghost faces with a marker pen (save the scary faces for when they’re older and actually get the joke). If your baby is sitting confidently or crawling, you can drop a couple of glow sticks inside each jug, screw the lid on securely, dim the lights, and let your baby loose with three or four of them. They’ll shake them, roll them, bang them together, and probably invent games you’d never have thought of yourself.

A word of caution on glow sticks: keep the lids on tight and check them for cracks before you hand them over. The liquid inside isn’t meant to be swallowed or get on skin or in eyes, so if a jug ever splits, take it away straight away and wipe down anything it touched. If your baby is a heavy mouther, you might feel safer swapping the glow sticks for a couple of battery-operated LED tea lights instead, or skipping them altogether.

For younger babies, small plastic water bottles work just as well as milk jugs, and they’re easier for tiny hands to hold. Skip the glow sticks completely and drop in a small handful of dried rice, lentils or large beads instead, then glue the lid down properly (hot glue works well) so there’s no way it can come loose. That gives you a homemade Halloween rattle in about two minutes flat.

2. Baby Halloween forest

Babies under one can’t run about a garden trail the way toddlers can, but you can still bring the outdoors to them. Lay out a blanket in the garden or on the living room floor and build a mini autumn world for your baby to explore with their hands.

Gather a few different leaves, some smooth pebbles, a couple of sturdy twigs and a mini pumpkin or two, aiming for as much variety in texture and shape as you can. Hide a couple of soft toy animals in among it all for your baby to discover. This kind of open-ended exploring is genuinely good for babies. It gives their hands and fingers something new to work on, and it’s the sort of low-key sensory input that supports the fine motor skills they’ll rely on later for things like feeding themselves and eventually holding a crayon.

A couple of safety points worth taking seriously here. Anything you hand to your baby should be too big to swallow, so if it can pass through the middle of a toilet roll tube, it’s too small and needs to go back in the pile. Twigs should be smooth without sharp splinters, and mini pumpkins can be surprisingly good projectiles once a baby figures out they roll, so keep them at a distance where a stray throw won’t reach a face. Leaves picked from your own garden are usually fine, but skip anything that’s been near weed killer or slug pellets, and stay close by so leaves and twigs don’t end up in your baby’s mouth.

3. Halloween sensory box

Babies love a bit of mystery, and this is basically a homemade feely box with a Halloween theme. Take a shoebox or similar, wrap it in orange or black fabric or paper, and cut a hole in the top just big enough for a small hand to fit through. Fill it with something baby-friendly for them to fish around and discover, then let them explore with one hand at a time while you watch what they do.

For babies who are still mouthing everything (which is most babies under one), stick to things that are safe even if they end up licked or chewed: a soft fabric pumpkin, a silicone teether, a strip of bubble-textured fabric, a wooden ring, or a couple of large, smooth pom-poms. Save the smaller loose fillers like sand, dried beans or beads for babies who are past the mouthing stage, and even then, only under close supervision, since these are classic choking hazards for little ones.

What makes this game so good for babies is that it asks them to work out what something is using touch alone, without any visual clues. That’s a genuinely useful bit of sensory development, and it’s one of the reasons occupational therapists often use similar “mystery bag” activities with young children. You don’t need to buy anything special for it either. A rummage through the toy box, the sock drawer and the kitchen cupboard will usually turn up plenty.

4. Pinata with a twist

A proper swinging pinata is out of the question for a baby who can’t stand yet, but you can borrow the idea and scale it right down. Since babies under one explore everything with their mouths, this version needs to be completely safe to chew on, not just safe to swallow.

Take a few small paper or polystyrene cups and decorate the outsides with strips of tissue paper or crepe streamers, stuck on with a non-toxic, child-safe glue (PVA is a good, cheap option). Instead of sweets, fill each cup with something rattly and safe: large dried pasta shapes, dry cereal, jingle bells sewn into fabric pouches, or a couple of small soft toys, then seal the top with more paper and tape so nothing can spill out and end up in a baby’s mouth.

A genuinely important point here: skip sweets and hard treats altogether for a baby under one. Hard, chewy or small round sweets are a choking risk for babies who can’t chew properly yet, and honey in particular should never be given to a baby under 12 months because of the small risk of infant botulism. Once the cups are filled and sealed, set two or three of them on the floor for your baby to bash, shake or bang together. Different fillings make different sounds, so if you’re feeling ambitious you can line a few up and let your baby have their own little Halloween percussion session.

Keeping it safe

None of these crafts need to be complicated, but a few ground rules apply across all of them. Always supervise closely, especially with anything small enough to fit in a mouth. Check toys and homemade items regularly for loose parts, splitting seams or cracked plastic. Avoid strong glues, small button-type batteries, and anything with a strong smell or sharp edge. If your baby has any additional needs or you’re not sure whether a particular texture or material is suitable, it’s always worth asking your health visitor first.

You don’t need a big display or a pile of expensive decorations to give your baby a proper first Halloween. A few rattly jugs, a box of leaves and a homemade sensory box will get you further than you’d think, and they’ll probably keep you just as entertained as your baby.

Happy Halloween!