How long do you spend playing with your toddler ?

[Stillmonday]

I try and play as much as I can but he's not good at entertaining himself which makes me feel super guilty when i need to do chores.

What's realistic??

A lot, but I’m lucky she’ll carry on playing if I have to pop away and chores mostly involve her too - unstacking the dishwasher, laundry in and out of the machine, hanging it up or sorting and folding it, I put her on my back in the sling if I’m cooking sometimes. I also bake or cook when she’s eating and try not to make too much separation between playing and me getting stuff done. She loves books so I read to her a few times a day and then she’ll toddle off and sit flicking through them at other time’s.

Other things she enjoys are a pull back car, a water drawing mat, lining up her soft toys. If I’m doing something in the kitchen involving the oven or whatever and need a minute I’ll say go and get a few of her toys by name from the toy chest thing and she’ll go and get them while I finish what I’m doing.

What age is your little one ? I found a big difference between my boy being 18 months to now at 2 and a half .
Up until he was 2 he would always need me to entertain him but he's developed the ability to use his imagination more recently which gives me a break from reading books to him constantly !

This might sound horrible... but as little as possible! Tbh, I don't play with him at all. Never have. I engage with him and take him out for walks. If he really wants my attention I try to read or do a puzzle with him. I have other things to do so he needs to learn to play alone and I just don't enjoy playing.

My DD is 20 months. I try to give maybe 45 mins a day to playing, maybe the same for reading, then she has some time to herself to play while I do chores. Sometimes she joins me and 'helps' with housework and sometimes she happily sits and plays by herself. For a while there she refuse to play by herself but i did persevere as i knew she needed to learn to entertain herself a bit. I also take her out every day, even if its just to the park where I would play with her, or pre covid times it would be a baby group where she would play with other kids.

Quite a bit. I'm trying to bring his language on as much as possible.
He has a bit of TV if he gets up pre 5.30.
Puzzles/game with me after breakfast.
Stories with me after that usually.
A walk/nap in the pushchair with me, usually getting him to use his words through games like "can you find a yellow flower" for example.
After lunch I usually sit with him on the floor for games/nursery rhymes etc.

Like pp, he tends to follow me round a fair bit. He thinks the hoovering is a game, joins me sorting washing/loading the machine etc. As someone else said l, there's little differentiation between playing and him doing stuff with me.

A couple hours a day of down on the ground playing probably, then the rest of the time we’ll be doing an activity like baking or going for a walk, or she’ll play on her own while I’m doing something.

On nursery days we play less because by the time she’s got home and had tea and sometimes a bath, she usually just crashes on the sofa with some telly and then it’s bedtime.