{"id":3191,"date":"2023-01-13T22:41:18","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T22:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/s37407.p1377.sites.pressdns.com\/resources\/how-to-make-a-basic-calm-down-bottle\/"},"modified":"2023-01-13T22:41:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T22:41:18","slug":"how-to-make-a-calm-down-bottle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/how-to-make-a-calm-down-bottle\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make a calm down bottle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Gabrielle Ocasio<\/p><p>As a single mother of two sets of twins, I have my hands full. They&rsquo;re very spirited children. Two have been diagnosed with ADHD, and you would not believe how many meltdowns happen daily. I discovered the magic of the calm down bottles after my oldest started to slam doors like a teenager. <\/p><p>I wanted to help my daughter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/self-regulation-strategies-for-kids\/\">learn how to calm down<\/a> when stressed or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/how-to-help-kids-with-anxiety\/\">feeling anxious<\/a>. I searched the internet for ways to help my child. That&rsquo;s when I found the calm down bottles, which go by many names including time out bottles, sensory bottles or even just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/sensory-activities-toddlers-preschoolers\/\">calming glitter jars<\/a>, but their purpose remains the same regardless of what you call them.<\/p><p>Calm down bottles are a tool to redirect your child in the midst of a meltdown or a tantrum or even relax a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/anxiety-in-kids-what-are-the-signs-and-when-to-seek-help\/\">child with anxiety<\/a>. I even made one for myself because what parent can&rsquo;t use some relaxation. And let me tell you these things work!<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-instructions-for-how-to-make-a-basic-calm-down-bottle\">I<strong>nstructions for how to make a basic calm down bottle<\/strong><\/h2><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Materials:<\/strong><\/h3><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>1 or 2 bottles of glitter glue or clear tacky glue.<\/li><li>Fine glitter.<\/li><li>Food coloring&nbsp; (not the gel food coloring).<\/li><li>Chunky glitter or confetti.<\/li><li>Hot glue gun.<\/li><\/ul><p>IMPORTANT: If you&rsquo;re making this for a child, I recommend using a plastic bottle. Any kind works, but I&rsquo;d stay away from the water bottles with thin plastic. You want something durable that won&rsquo;t break around an upset child.<\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Instructions:<\/strong><\/h3><ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Fill the bottle 1\/3 of the way with warm water.<\/li><li>Next add your glitter glue to the bottle, the amount depends on your personal preference and how quickly you want the glitter to float in the bottle.<\/li><li>Now add the fine and chunky glitter to the bottle. I bought a multi pack of glitter at Walmart and added some complimentary colors. The more colors you add the more things you&rsquo;re giving your child to focus on. Now is also the time to add anything special to your bottle. I&rsquo;ve made some bottles with plastic letters inside that spell CALM. We have confetti in some bottles, and my kids love searching for the shapes inside when they&rsquo;re relaxing. I even have glow-in-the-dark stars in one bottle, and that is a huge hit with my kids around bedtime.<\/li><li>Next you can add 1 or 2 drops of food coloring. If the bottle is large, add more food coloring. You can also leave the water clear for a snow globe look. This would work best with the clear tacky glue.<\/li><li>If you need to add more water to the bottle, do that now. Remember, do not overfill with water. You need some air to make it easier for the water\/glue mixture to move around the bottle.<\/li><li>Finally, to prevent the liquid and glitter from leaking out, hot glue the lid closed.<\/li><li>Enjoy!<\/li><\/ol><p>Creating a calm down bottle is a fun activity to do with your kids and a great tool for teaching young kids to self soothe. Feel free to get creative and personalize it however you or your child likes.<\/p><p>When finished, remind your children that they&rsquo;ve just created their very own calm down bottle. Explain its purpose and how to use it.<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.kinsights.com\/content\/images\/MomsRising-201711032011080882None\" alt=\"\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Gabrielle&rsquo;s children<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><p>My children know when they&rsquo;re feeling upset, or sad, they need to get their bottles. They play&nbsp;I Spy<em>&nbsp;<\/em>and will point out everything they can see in the bottle. This helps take their mind off what was troubling them. Once they tell me they&rsquo;re feeling better, that&rsquo;s my opportunity to sit down and talk&nbsp;with&nbsp;them (not at) about what upset them.<\/p><p>The calm down bottle has been a huge help with my children at home and at school. I can proudly say my daughter has also stopped slamming our doors!&nbsp;<\/p><p><em>This article originally appeared on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/latinaonamission.com\/diy-craft-how-to-make-a-glitter-calm-down-bottle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">LatinaOnaMission.com<\/a>&nbsp;in 2015. Posted in 2017&nbsp;on the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.momsrising.org\/blog\/how-to-make-a-basic-calm-down-bottle\/?source=fb\">MomsRising blog<\/a>. Republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A calm down bottle is a simple tool to redirect kids in the midst of a meltdown or a tantrum or even relax a child with anxiety. Here&#8217;s how to make your own DIY version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":770,"featured_media":18121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"enable_toc":false,"care_reviewed_by":0,"care_post_updated_flag":false,"care_updated_date":"","last_update":"2023-01-13","view_count":3581,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"member-type":[4],"vertical":[6,17],"platform":[2],"class_list":["post-3191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","member-type-all","vertical-children","vertical-child-care-advice","platform-resources"],"acf":[],"created":"2017-03-03","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/770"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3191"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94666,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions\/94666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"member-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-type?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/platform?post=3191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}