Be mindful about sensory overload

Since Little Joy Play opened its doors in April 2023 in Upper Bukit Timah, it has expanded to a second outlet in Pasir Ris.

- 

The company also conducts sensory play sessions at indoor playgrounds. It started a new sensory play programme conducted in Mandarin in 2024.

Little Joy Play charges $180 monthly for four sessions of sensory play lasting one hour each. Private play dates can be arranged for $55 a child, while sensory play birthday parties start at $280 for five children.

Ms Meyi and her co-founder, Ms Indri Huang, 33, used to work as pre-school teachers.

Ms Meyi says the immersive, hands-on exploratory play at Little Joy Play would have been "tough to conduct in a pre-school setting".

She adds: "At pre-school, it's rushed, with higher teacher-children ratios (compared with us), and space constraints."

Ms Indri acknowledges the impact of wider trends such as increasingly sensorial playgrounds — some with features like water play — and parental interest in baby-led weaning, an approach to introducing solids that bypasses purees and allows babies to self-feed using their fingers.

She says: "The children are exposed to different textures and baby-led weaning is messy play in itself, and could reduce food neophobia." This is a rejection of or reluctance to try new and different foods.

Dr Hanin concurs that kids with food neophobia or picky eaters can benefit from such play.

"Sensory play involving food textures and smells has been shown to increase children's willingness to try unfamiliar fruits and vegetables.