How much time do you spend playing with your infant age child in the week?

[Bramshott]

DD1 (5) is very into imaginitive play, and tbh I struggle with it a bit, but always try to find time to play with her. DD2 is just 1 so isn't really up to the intricacies of "you be the princess who's trapped in the tower"! She would love to play the whole time, but in the week I really struggle to find time and then I end up feeling guilty because I haven't had much time for her.

She gets in at about 3.50, and wants to chill out with TV and a snack until about 4.30, by which point I have started cooking (I work earlier in the day so I can't get ahead with it then), and then by the time she and DD2 have eaten, there is barely any of the day left! They have a bath about 6.30 and then we do reading book, stories, DD2 to bed and then DD1 to bed about 7.30.

Soooo, do you all find time to play with your school age child during the week? Are your kids all much more self-reliant and play by themselves? Or is there just not much time?!

[toadstool]

I think you'll have to accept that playtime with mummy is for week-ends. If your DD1 is happy to play on her own, that's fantastic! It's when they start trailing around demanding to play with you when you're busy that it's annoying. And you are the adult after all. You have a right to work, get dinner when it's the afternoon, and look after both your kids. If you're feeling guilty about her lack of playing in the hours after school, how about arranging some playdates?

[HonoriaGlossop]

There is just not much time!

Two days a week I get DS from school at 3 and then he hares round the park till about 4, then I get home and stick dinner on, and by the time that's done and eaten it's pretty much time for pyjamas and stories...like your DD he just plays imaginatively ALL the time so while I'm cooking he is getting into and out of various fancy dress etc, and I'm half-cooking, half-playing....he seems happy with that though!

Three days of the week I get home at 5.30 so it's a regimen of cook, eat, pyjamas and bed so pretty much no playtime for me and him

It's a balance isn't it; as parents we want to play with them but also we need to look out for other areas of their life as well, proper food, enough sleep etc; so I don't think you need feel guilty about not having that much time...

[Bramshott]

I think I need to get better at saying "no" - what I tend to say (because I'm forever the optimist!) is "I'll try and play when I've finished this", or "let's see if there's time after dinner" and then of course there isn't, and maybe that confuses her more than if I just said "no, I'm sorry, there's no time in the week, but I'll make sure we have time to play on Saturday". I'm also aware that there is a part of me which struggles against imaginitive play and would rather do 'activites' - craft-type stuff or outings, but I am trying to accept that being at home and playing with me in her bedroom is her idea of heaven! And trying to remind myself that in a couple of years time she will be shutting me out of her bedroom and not want to play with me!

She has a friend coming to play tonight in fact, so that will be good. Maybe as you say, we need to do that more often but it's not that easy as she comes home by taxi.

[HonoriaGlossop]

Maybe you could try and direct her play a bit so that you can keep cooking/doing whatever needs doing but she FEELS you're playing....sometimes if DS is a superhero or power ranger or whatever he likes to be sent on imaginary missions or set challenges, which I can do from the kitchen!!!

I guess it's difficult if she won't accept that though and wants you in her room....however I wouldn't feel at all guilty at saying no in that situation; life is not all play for adults, there are other things you have to do and it's healthy for her to learn that I think.

[ten10]

Could you turn cooking into an imaginative game,
and other chores that you need to do?

[blueshoes]

Any time with baby is playtime. Children find their own amusement and take so much from ordinary daily life anyway. Every thing is new and fascinating. I don't believe in dangling things in front of babies with an exaggerated face and noise or reading a book to a baby - that is, for ds, my second. I did that with dd, my PFB.

It does not have to be adult-directed/supervised play for babies to learn. Having said that, both mine needed me to be around and cuddling them most of the time they were awake and did hardly any independent play or playing with their own feet or the baby arch or guggling to themselves etc as infants.

[Bramshott]

Sorry blueshoes, I wasn't clear - I meant infant school age, so between 4 and 7 yrs.