To be really dreading half term

My ds has very wisely kept a few of his Christmas gifts to use now - a Lego set, a puzzle, 2 new books, we planned 2 play dates and a lovely day out. That should cover it for us.

Will you also be working or on AL?
February half term is the worst. Bad weather, no money, not much on. I sympathise.

I think it's harder when they are young. I only have 1 child but when he was younger, he needed a lot of entertaining which was hard.

I used to do things like walk to the library in the next village as they had a children's room with colouring and toys alongside the books. So that used to kill a whole morning.

Swimming is good and generally not expensive- again takes a good chunk of time and tires them out.

Wrap up warm and go to the park for a bit of fresh air.

Simple and cheap baking e.g. simple fairy cakes or rice Crispin cakes is a good one.

It does get better - my son is 12 now and it's so much easier as he will arrange to meet up with friends in the village and they will amuse themselves for ages.

I am looking forward to half term as I am a teacher so get the week off and I am currently bone drenchingly exhausted.

I think when one’s school age and one is pre school that’s a really hard age gap, especially in the winter when the weather’s horrid.

The best thing we did around that age was the “lollipop stick jar” - write down lots of rainy day activities on lollipop sticks, when you’re bored but overwhelmed by trying to think of what to do you just pull one out, I found it helpful when I’d run out of steam.

So for example the stick might say “Build the tallest lego tower” or “draw a picture of your sister” etc, nothing super complicated or that needs a lot of set up.

I also included some “Do your maths workbook” and “Tidy your toys away” kind of jobs

@LondonPapa

Nice idea but ski-ing is prohibitively expensive for the average person… particularly in this case as the OP said very early on that they are currently skint.

Feb. half term is for skiing. Go skiing with kiddos.

I know what you mean Feb half term is the absolute worst of the school holidays. I wish they'd remove it from Feb and add it on to the end of May week.

Im looking forward to it so much but then term time is way more stressful for me, im a single parent to 4 autistic kids and term time is far more stress, at least it’s only a week off you get far more time at school!

I don’t blame you honestly. In summer it’s not as bad. The weather is just so bad here where I am it’s been raining non stop for weeks and I’ve a big age gap between mine it’s hard to find things to do

Why isn't their Dad taking some time off to look after them? I'm a teacher so I was and still am the school holiday childcare but quite honestly whatever my two kids could throw at me was a doddle compared to work. Even so, it was hard work and I used to make dh take some time off to look after them and give me a break!

I wasn't dreading it until dds came home today arguing constantly!

My more helpful advice is to have a plan for each day.
Do you have any museums near you?
What about the library? If they are young there are usually a lot more things going on for free to go along to.
Even at home I used to have a rough idea of what each day could involve - baking one day, painting the next, playdoh another day.
If it's dry going for a walk, playground, feed the ducks.
Take them swimming? (Not sure how confident you feel about that, mine have 15 months between them and I took them alone when they were 5/6).

School age children should be able to amuse themselves at times. They don’t need 24\7 entertainment from their parents..

It gets easier as they get older. All mine want to do is go on screens and I have to drag them out the house!

Glad to be working most of the week so only have to deal with them for one day .

Its hard going sometimes I agree @icecreaminspain

We just have one, I find occupying them during holidays a boring task. I find they are better when out and moving around, but we live in greater London - so everything is expensive. Just leaving the house seems to cost £50, even with free things booked to do: travel, food etc. You have my sympathy OP. Not going to give you any advice, puddle suits and parks and ham sandwich’s don’t fill a week in my opinion.

I'm looking forward to the break. My two DC are at secondary, both ASD and struggle hugely with school. Half term is a break for all of us from the daily "trying to go to school". We don't really have plans but I work term time only so will get time to do house stuff while they decompress and recharge for the next half term.

February half term is the worst holiday I think, but at least it's only five days.

My advice would be to have a plan for each day that involves getting out of the house at least once preferably twice a day, some downtime (for them and you) and some tricks for time at home. It's always much easier if you have a plan ime!

This is the first one I'll have had off work in a long while and I'm really looking forward to it!

No uniforms to wash, no packed lunches to sort, no early school drop offs, fewer clubs and sports to taxi them around. Honestly, even when I'm working I love a half term.

When the weather's pants the pressure to make the most of the sun is off. We've got a dog so it's a daily dog walk somewhere other than our usual parks - beaches, woods, reservoirs, rivers, mountains etc.

We can get those things done which are more of a rush and a chore on the weekend with all the hobbies and sports - like a trip to the barbers, the library.

We'll see friends on some days and have our own adventures on others. Theatre and cinema trips are fun but expensive so one offs.

I'm going to do a birthday thing for one of my boys on one day to save the stress of doing it on a weekend.

I've preferred it since I stopped treating it like a competition to make the best memories. Especially in October when everything becomes some grim Halloween themed nightmare. Eww.

Feb half term is my favourite half term to be off work - I always feel we all need a break together.

How old are your children? Sounds like they’re little from your talk of puddle suits and I know that is hard.

Do you live near enough the coast to go and look at the wild and woolly sea - that’s my favourite thing to do in Feb.

NT outings sound good though.

It’s our Feb break this week and it has been windy and rainy every day. It’s not always like that, I’ve had great Feb breaks at Center Parcs where it was mild and dry, and I got married at this time in year in nice pleasant weather. Thankfully mine are older and happy indoors. I saw younger kids playing out earlier looking a bit glum (and no doubt dragging mud into their houses).

Had an invite to join friends in Tenerife too but the kids didn’t want to go, ha!

I must admit, weekends, bank holidays and school breaks stress me out. The competition for time off at work,
Disruption of routine and being cooped in with Cbeebies. The weather is usually crap and activities and local events are expensive and boring.