Trapped toddler parents of the fabled Winter 2020/2021. Puddle suits at the ready..hello Christmas!

[footprintsintheslow]

New thread as the other one is running out.

A place to find find and share ideas of how to get through these crazy times with lockdowns and babies and toddlers.

New members welcome.

@PinkDaydreams I’ve not set the water pump up yet, so here’s a Facebook photo. Basically there’s a silicon pipe which goes in the bottom of the pump and needs to lay in water (it’s designed to reach the bottom of one of those enormous bottles of water in offices etc). So you need some kind of support which will hold the pump up but let water in at the bottom - hence the duplo tower here! The water gets sucked up and shoots out of the “tap”, back on to the tuff tray, where it’s sucked back up the pipe again.

@footprintsintheslow I’m in a couple! I saw this in one called Bored toddler and children’s ideas.

My 3 year old seems to have forgotten how to play. That or all his toys at home are boring. Constant activities required... Today we chopped lots of veg, roasted it and made it in to soup - that worked well as an activity (if you ignore the meltdown as each stage was finished...).

I'm back as I fell off the other thread, sorry!

Remember I was broody from all the newborns? Well I'm 11 weeks pregnant now :o

Activities of the last few days have been a simple board game where you have to build a house, off a friend whose kids have outgrown it, the marble run and a ball and rod magnet toy SIL had from when DH was little! It's swallow hazard central but he's fascintated by it.

@WeSearchedHereWeSearchedThere thank you! That looks like something my son will enjoy 😊 he loves water

@BertieBotts congratulations! Ignore us, having two is simples

Congratulations @BertieBotts! Hope you are feeling ok.
How is your tiny DD doing @footprintsintheslow? We also play games involving the baby - today he was designated the frog in room on the broom .
We have had some success on the tuff tray with dumping a load of old birthday cards on there just before the baby needs feeding and asking the toddler to find all the ones with flowers/ cake / balloons etc; also with adding a packet of floral sequins to the rice we play with on there - toddler enjoyed picking them out of the heap.
My baker ross sale order arrived, so far we have made a foam boats kit and floated them on a very shallow pool in the tuff tray (inside, high risk but was ok - put the tuff tray on a picnic blanket just in case). Looking forward to making some caterpillars by threading beads on a green pipecleaner (could have done this without a kit obviously but didn't have any beads).

@BertieBotts. Congratulations...lovely news!

Today, we took a couple of small plastic boats to the playground and DS enjoyed sitting in a puddle and sailing them. We've made a couple of mini-greenhouses with old milk bottles in which we're now germinating bell pepper seeds on the windowsill so we'll see how that goes . Other than that, we've had a lazy afternoon watching old DVDs our neighbour gave us (Peppa, King Rollo and the Complete Spot the Dog).

Also to say I have no link or affiliation and I know everyone is overwhelmed with content but I am finding (at)theplayfulden on instagram so motivating at the moment especially the highlight called “pep talk” (also not sure if I am allowed by mumsnet to post this - all copyright is hers obviously)

Congratulations @BertieBotts such lovely news! Keep us updated.

Baby doing well here except for some projectile vomiting on clean bedding. Seems to have passed now but that was a tiring three days.

Toddler clingy and tearful so need to keep having lots of snuggles and stories with her.

Think I'll try making moon sand with flour and baby oil tomorrow. Anyone tried that? Is that like homemade kinetic sand?

Aww thanks everyone. Yes I think I'm past the worst now, fingers crossed.

Taking boats on a walk is genius - must try that. We have plenty of puddles here. DS2 has just mastered jumping with two feet so was doing lots of splashing today.

Congratulations @BertieBotts

I worked today but could hear DS1 and DS2 playing together which was nice, DS2 was 'spacebaby' who kept escaping the rocket (crawling out of the play tent).

DS2 has a new favourite activity, emptying boxes/drawers and refilling them...hours of fun! (I almost went to re-read up on schemas in my Early Years text books but am too tired to retain extra interesting information atm)

DS1 wants to make a siesmometer at the weekend so will have to fit that in, I will let you all know how we get along...it sounds a bit complicated for a 4.5 year old.

Ah congratulations @BertieBotts more babies! I love more babies! I’m wanting another one but DP is yet to be convinced.

DS was at nursery today so I strapped DD into the sling and we went for a walk round a local nature reserve for a couple of hours. No shouting toddler, not having to be someone snack bitch, no talking to other people, just DD vomiting down my cleavage and silence and fresh air. It was lovely.

Tomorrow we have DSD over, she’s 11 and an little star. Trip to the park is on the cards. And I bought a bag of Asda cookie mix so we’ll do that.

I’ve hidden the kinetic sand for a few days, so that when I get it out it’ll be a New Thing. Well, I’m hoping it will.

We made pom pom poppers after nursery today. Loo roll tube, tie off a balloon (not inflated) cut it in half and put over one end of the loo roll, put some pom poms in the other end and twang the tail of the balloon and it shoots them out. He was shooting, I was catching in the laundry basket. Lasted a good five minutes then he kicked off cos he wanted a burger, he got a pear instead.

Snack bitch love your turn of phrase MonkeyPuddle
Pompom poppers sound like a great idea - will be trying those this week, thanks!
For those with slightly older babies (DS is coming up to 5 months), one thing that has been an unexpected success in getting the toddler more involved in playing with the baby is bbc’s Baby Club programme. I get them both one of whatever object is being explored in the programme and DD (2yrs) has her own bubbles to blow at the end of the programme and she ‘helps’ me sing him the songs etc. Never thought I would be recommending TV for a 5 month old but thats corona for you and its a really lovely 15 mins of our day at the moment.
for everyone else also up at 5:30 today haha

Hello all, I've been off flipping out and not coping.. but better this week

Got myself a new schedule. Mostly involving making stuff we can deliver to friends and therefore chat on doorsteps. both me and DD so lonely!
This weekend is fairy cakes. I bought some small cake boxes and flags like the type you get at buffets - this can be her writing practice!

I love the shallow pond ruff tray idea. We have loads of neglected Octonauts toys that would love a swim.

Moon sand yes it's kinetic sand, never worked for me, but fun in same way as any baking is.

Santa brought some brand new Playdoh tubs which DS has been demanding but I haven't been able to face it until now. We cracked it out this morning...

So traumatised! All that mixing of pristine colours. I really can't cope with playdoh .

We made moon sand on lockdown 1, DS liked it not as much as kinetic sand though.

I've bought the water pump as DS is constantly playing in the sink. I have to tell him we will run out of water for his bath to get him to stop. Thank you for posting about it.

DH has had a load of loose compost tipped up so him and hopefully DS are moving that today. DS has his own little wheelbarrow and shovel. He's very rubbish with the cold though so.i doubt he'll be out there long.

I've had a slight panic as DS preschool has sent through their usual activities and one on there is to find 5 things that start with D. Theres no way he could do that, so might start doing some letter tuff trays now it's arrived

PLEASE don't panic about literacy for preschoolers. No need they will get there in the end. Usually when 6ish! Stupid British education system. Play is all the learning they need. You definitely don't need the pressure right now. Please just have fun! Btw I'm an Occupational therapist I know what I'm talking about.

Ds nursery have sent me a load of phonics to do with him, he's not actually been allowed to start nursery as planned because they have closed due to the virus. I've also been panicking about expectations, he's not interested in phonics at all, he's only three!

I had a thread up a few months ago as DS’s nursery sent homework home. My initial response was ‘that can fuck off’ and frankly it still is. DS is 4 in June. I’m firmly of the opinion that children his age do not need formal, structured education. Yeah fine slip a bit of learning in with the play, but at its core play should be just that, play. Fine do colour sorting, games with numbers, but phonics? At 3? With no additional resources for parents who are working/homeschooling/just general surviving thought a pandemic. Nah, it can get to fuck.
If I wanted to be a teacher I would have trained to be one, so I’m just going to play with my kids and have the straight jacket of the British education system forced upon them as late as I can.

@PinkDaydreams and other pp. My DS knows all his letters and sounds and he's just turned three. Is it because I'm such a great mum... yeah right !!! It's because in the first lockdown when nurseries were shut, I sat him in front of YouTube alphabet videos for hours while I tried to work. Not proud of that... there are much more important skills for little ones to be working on like concentration and gross and fine motor skills.

As a reception teacher I can tell you that we all wish that nurseries and pre schools would not go near phonics as we spend most of the time trying to teach the children to unlearn their bad habits picked up from them.
These kids are so little forget the structured learning for sure...revolt!!!

Thanks everyone you've made me feel better about it. It does seem to soon to be 'teaching' them also I don't know much about learning phonics

Thank you from me as well, you've all put my mind at ease, I'll stop beating myself up now!

I just think that teachers are experts in their field, I would do a piss poor job trying to teach a small child a subject I know nothing about!
DS knows the alphabet song but he doesn’t know a single letter and that’s fine, we play games with the letters of his name but that’s purely so he can learn to recognise it at school on his peg.

I just think they have so long in school let's enjoy the pre school years for what they are.

I've got the tuff tray outside with dying flower petals in for tomorrow as it's freezing here.

I've also got some water beads soaking now which I've never done before so that's exciting.

We didn't get round to the moon sand today.

I tend to think that if you surround a child with a ton of books, and read to them frequently, the job is half done. Then they go to school and hone what they've already absorbed through books.

When I had DD1 as a teen, I followed what I called the Holy Trinity, which, loosely summarised, consisted of the following

-Provide a constant stream of books
-Get them outside as much as possible, preferably with a trowel and a packet of seeds.

• Don't feed them (too much) shit.

And, I mean, obviously they're fairly blunt tools that I've honed over the years, but I stand by the Holy Trinity yet 😂