To find it expensive keeping preschoolers fed & entertained?

Totally agree. I love the beach with the kids and would be as entertained as the kids!! We'd also take a picnic on most days out.
A trip to the beach would be a difficult trip without a car where we live. We also go inland to places with streams , woods etc ( still love plodging in a river!)

No child ever needs to go to soft play. They’ll be fine in rain and mud. Toys and books from charity shops are cheap enough to replenish often. They’ll enjoy doing things with you (even housework!) much more than anything you spend money on. Use your imagination and get them to use theirs.

Excluding any childcare pre schoolers are cheap, easy to entertain and feed. What are you doing that costs so much.... I went park of playground either 50p, £1 or free for tro hours. Food cheese, cucumber and other snacks. Visited other preschoolers and their mums at home in the afternoon. Less than a couple of £1's. We all did that. If we want to the park we took snacks.

@WittiestUsernameEver

Half a punnet of 12 strawberries is 6 strawberries.

It's interesting. I'd consider 10-12 strawberries too many for a little one. More like 4-6 would be ample really.

But it doesn't matter really what you or my child eats. It's just about OP and how kids can be as expensive or as cheap as you make it :)

@WittiestUsernameEver

Yes, she'd eat an entire punnet of strawberries, and 3 bananas a day -but I don't let her.

Mine isn't eating that either.

Example-

Mon: sliced banana on toast, half punnet of strawberries through the day (a punnet is only about 10-12 strawberries at most)

Tue: banana with porridge, half a punnet of strawberries through the day

Wed: half punnet of blueberries in porridge which we all eat, banana for snack

Thurs: same again

Fri: banana with weetabix, watermelon and apple snack

Sat: sliced banana and strawberries on pancakes, apple and peanut butter snack

Sun: banana, strawberry, flaxseed smoothie, satsuma snack.

Some dried apricots and raisins here and there.

They don't need to inhale a whole punnet every day to get through a decent amount of fruit before even starting on veg.

I don't think toddlers are expensive to entertain at all so I don't mind buying the nicest, priciest fruit and see him enjoy it.

She eats lots of veg, yes. Because they should only really be having 1-2 portions of fruit a day.

Yes, she'd eat an entire punnet of strawberries, and 3 bananas a day -but I don't let her. She has 1 piece of fruit most days, sometimes 2 - depending on what we've got in etc. She has cucumber, celery, carrot sticks, peppers, broccoli etc instead of expensive fruit.

Oh right sorry. Very sleep deprived. In the trenches!!
In any case, I wouldn't risk taking my 3 year old and 7 month old swimming alone. Just feels too much for one person.

Being in the trenches currently also makes me think some people are looking back at the toddler years with rose tinted specs thinking that a 3 year old has an attention span of more than 5 seconds. I'd rather pay £8 for an activity guaranteed to entertain them (and somewhere safe and fenced off) rather than a trip somewhere they'll be bored with very quickly and then requires quick thinking to avoid a tantrum

They don’t eat that much (no obligation to buy the over-priced specially market toddler snacks). You don’t need to do expensive activities to keep up with the “all for social media” brigade. Trips to the park, duck pond, library (just going to read books rather than organised sessions), running errands, playing at home/in the garden (rotate toys from charity shops) are all free. Playgroups are cheap. It doesn’t have to be expensive to entertain a toddler at all.

I had eldest hyperactive. I walked a lot and he biked or scooted - we did miles every day. We'd take snacks and waterbotte or pack lunch.

@neverwakeasleepingbaby the point is you can't take two under 3s into any of our local authority pools without a second adult swimming.

This is true. I hate imaginary play with a passion. I can cope with maybe an hour of it in a day so the rest of the time we're outdoors as I'm happier stomping about in the woods with him or going on on the bikes.

But I still think toddlers aren't expensive out of the house. We go to the woods, the park, the beach etc. No need for petrol if you bring toddler along on a bike seat. We pack our own lunch and snacks. If it's raining we go to the library, playgroup or play dates or visit family, or just wrap up and go to the woods anyway. A lot of that depends on where you live.

I'd rather set up a picnic blanket on the beach and bring a little bag of diggers and trucks for him to play with in the sand all day than be at home doing imaginary play.

I think it also depends on how much YOU enjoy the activities to keep them occupied at home.
As a single, non driving mum when my son was small I did not have spare money to do soft play (very few around then).
I was a volunteer leader at our toddlers group despite being a teenager, much younger than the other mums.
At home we'd bake, make dens in Front room and eat our meals in there, role play doctors , schools etc, play bands with kitchen stuff, all sorts of messy play/water play, craft etc. Nature hunts in garden or on walks, even in the rain, they loved it!
We'd also occasionally get the bus into the local city and go to the museums especially the free ones (we have some great ones and still do, interactive ones).
Admittedly I normally only had 1 child but occasionally would have DNiece for the day who was 2yrs younger.
I loved all that but when I've had to go to soft play since with our foster children I'd much rather be ANYWHERE else.

It depends what you do with them. Plenty of baby/toddler groups are £3 or under around my way (south east). Obviously there are some more expensive private classes, but look at the children's centre, church halls and library if you want something cheaper. Many include a little snack (fruit, veg, cheese, crackers, toast, breadsticks etc) in the price too.

It's a relatively modern thing, parents feeling they have to throw money at and take their children places to entertain them all the time.

My mother - who had each of us (I am the middle one of 3) at home until the term before our 5th birthdays, as there was no pre-school provision in the 60s and 70s when we were children - certainly didn't take us anywhere as there was nowhere to go and she didn't drive. I was encouraged from a very early age to be quite self-motivated and I loved my dolls, paintbox, colouring books and was taught to read before I went to school. During the school holidays (so my elder brother was around), we engaged in a lot of garden-based play.

Yep, £3.

Aldi -
6 apples 99p
5 bananas 78p
Blueberries £1.29p (c.3 portions of around 8-10 berries)
Total : £3.06

That's plenty of fruit for 1 week for a 3 year old having 2 servings of fruit a day.

Just because you're choosing to let your child eat an entire punnet of £3.50 strawberries in one go, doesn't mean fruit has to be expensive for small kids.

Yeah we spend alot of time at softplay and swimming. Park is crap in cold weather, even in waterproofs. The playgroups round here are crap, barley any toys, rough kids. DS asks to go home after about 45 minutes of braving it and honestly I feel the same.

He's a doer, not a wonderer, a walk round a shop is not entertainment, he needs to be moving his body, not just in a differnt place.

Oh, my daughter would eat an entire pint of strawberries or blueberries if I allowed her. However, she isn't allowed because they're too expensive and there's just no need. So when she gets strawberry she probably gets five or six

This so regional or even local isn't it ? Round here a punnet of local Strawberries is £1 and will be till the end of August. Then there will be buckets of free apples and blackberries in the bushes, followed by pears in October etc.

Granted Nov- May is tougher ( although I will stew and freeze apples/ blackberies/ Rhubarb for use in the winter months. I also buy frozen berries.

So a swim followed by a cheese sandwich and a punnet of strawberries ( -and a 2 finger kitkat each for me a 2 preschoolers would cost me £8ish. I think I used to budget a fiver a day in 2007/8/9/10. So about right. For some that would be more like £20-25 which seems a lot for a low key day out.

a pack of 6 small apples, a small punnet of berries and a few bananas should be plenty for a week? That's what...£3?

My toddler doesn't eat a huge amount of fruit but this is still way off. The price too. You're not getting what you've listed for £3 in your average supermarket.

It's a well-known cliché that toddlers absolutely tan fruit, especially berries. Mine will eat in a week: 7 bananas, 2 punnets of strawberries, a punnet of blueberries, dried raisins and apricots, and the occasional apple/orange/watermelon etc.

Unless yours is scoffing a lot of veg, then that's not much fruit and definitely not typical of most toddlers.

Ah you're lucky you didn't get a hoover. (Also not sure where you live, but a single punnet of berries is nearly £3 here, and will be finished in a day and a half)

How much fruit can a small person eat in a day? DD4:has 1, maybe 2 pieces of fruit a day. Shed have a small banana, an apple, a satsuma or similar and we bei a punnet of berries once a week and she'll have maybe...8-10 berries with plain yoghurt or something.

a pack of 6 small apples, a small punnet of berries and a few bananas should be plenty for a week? That's what...£3?

.

I agree OP. The cost of the fruit he eats alone is astronomical. Everything is so so expensive now.

I think under 3s require 1:1 but some people don't. I mean that's fine if they fancy that challenge but it feels too risky to me!

Oh dear.

If you think keeping pre-schoolers entertained is expensive then...good luck to you.

I could keep a whole crowd of preschoolers active and fully entertained for a week for less than I spend in an afternoon on an activity for two teens 😂