Keep looking

Two things may be turning up around now: an object used the way they have seen you use it — a bag, for instance, is a thing you put things into — and a toy that has gone out of sight being something they are sure enough about to carry on looking for. All this game does is give them somewhere to look. If today's search stops after two seconds, the toy comes back out anyway and the game still ends well.

🛡️ Never a plastic or carrier bag as a hiding place — a cloth bag, a box or a tea towel only, and every one of them leaves with you at the end rather than staying on the floor. Everything in the game is bigger than a toilet-roll tube, with nothing that can come off in a mouth. And a baby who can travel meets the whole room at floor level: before you start, get down to their height and sweep the route for trailing cords and blind pulls, small objects, hot drinks on low tables, and the sharp corner of whatever you have just pushed aside. Stairs get a gate before the game, not after it.