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.

Well DS2 actually slept through the night for the first time EVER! He's on a roll.

DH rolled out a picnic blanket for him yesterday and this was the best thing ever so ke keeps doing this now and sitting with his toys on it.

But we also seem to have the TV on a lot.

@Camomila I let DS try a dip of my beer once, thinking the same thing. He LOVED it. Badgered for it, I looked like a terrible mum!
Just so you know as well the MMR vac can cause a delay response rash 7-21 days after administration, just in case.

@BertieBotts tell me more about this full nights sleep you had? Do you feel like a new woman?

I’m trying to get hold of a sledge for DS, we’ve got snow forecast next week and it’s like trying to get hens teeth finding a bloody sledge.

I’ve got my mum trotting out the ‘rod for me back’ line as I’m not willing to let DD, who’s 13w, cry it out. She reckons it worked with my sister, but she fails to say that my sister woke multiple times a night until she started school, so it clearly didn’t! Plus I’d rather bed share til she was 8 or whatever than let her cry all night.

I'm still waiting for my full night's sleep, DD is 15months and still wakes every 2hours for milk. Tried to not give her milk last night and then she was wide awake for 3 hours until i gave in and gave her some.

We've made rockets out of toilet tubes and a robot out of a cereal box this morning. We then talked about what we would take to the moon, DS is taking 'mummy, TV, toys and rice cakes' doesn't sound to bad

Thanks @MonkeyPuddle I will stock up on Piriton just in case. I was always giving DS1 piriton as a baby/toddler, but I thought DS2 had escaped the being allergic to stuff like the rest of us...ah well we can all be itchy together!

Work day here, so DM is DC wrangling...DS2 keeps crawling in to try and steal my headset, but is generally happy to play with duplo by my feet.

Sorry @bertiebots that's amazing he slept through! (Can you tell I'm a tad jealous).

Well DS2 is nearly 2 and a half so sorry that isn't much of a tale of hope

I sadly did not get a full night's sleep as I kept waiting for him to wake up.

For the bad sleepers out there, have you tried white noise? My son is 3 and sleeps right through and has done since using the white noise from a young age, well we use brown noise as it's lower pitched. If the Bluetooth speaker runs out of battery and turns off he immediately wakes up

I sadly did not get a full night's sleep as I kept waiting for him to wake up

Haha, sorry this made me laugh, the amount of time I’ve spent awake looking at a sleeping baby/child!

We just got a cotbed for DS2 (six months), but not sure where to put it... Currently DH and DS1 bedshare and I’m in other bedroom with DS2. Considering all sharing a room (and wondering why we’re paying the mortgage on a four bedroom house). Theoretically it would be nice to actually share a bed with DH again, but right now our set up is getting everyone a reasonable amount of sleep and I am loathe to risk that!

We got bubble bath and a hand mixer out again this morning, a current favourite for DS1. Only downside is I have to keep the whisks out of reach as he keeps helping himself to the mixer out of the cupboard and plugging it in...

Hello, I’ve been so bad at keeping up with the thread - life is hard right now! Toddler meltdowns + baby feeding stresses have been getting to me. We’ve got a nice routine for the mornings now - we basically just head out to the park whatever the weather (thank god I invested in the baby wearing coat) and the baby will sleep in the sling for a good couple of hours so I can dedicate myself to the toddler! Afternoons are another story - he inevitably wakes her and it all goes to shit by 5pm. How on earth can I teach her to nap in her cot in these conditions?! On the plus side my tuff tray has finally arrived - any recommendations for some easy to set up winners?

PS on toddler sleep, DS was a horrendous sleeper until he got a gro clock for his 2nd birthday and has slept through nearly every night since. It was like a miracle.

Hey FolkSongSweet sorry to hear things are tough, things are a shambles with the baby naps & toddler combo over here too. Hopefully someone else will have tips! We got a tuff tray (& stand) at christmas (on the recommendation of this thread!) so I am a total beginner but it has been so great! We have done more elaborate set ups like artic animals with an iceberg & packing foam snow and the one with the railway round it but the simple stuff has been the best return on time investment - coloured rice & diggers/ trucks (and using it to hide puzzle pieces as kindly suggested upthread), a shallow covering of water & toy boats (these have been good as they need hardly any water to float - www.bakerross.co.uk/sailboat-kits-1?&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4_GPy8zU7gIVAurtCh0sdgtrEAQYAiABEgIZe_D_BwE), colour matching pompoms, sorting postcards (find me all the postcards with trees/ yellow/ circles on etc), and her absolute favourite, “potions” with water with food colouring in in little pots and trays and a big bowl of clear water to mix colours in. But even stuff like the farm animals, duplo, dollshouse is played with differently on the tuff tray than on the floor I find! It is also good for painting, and I am looking forward to doing more messy craft on there like marble painting, and also the cereal/ oats/ three bears etc set ups I have seen upthread from footprints & others. As a caveat we are in a house which will be redecorated soon so I am letting the mess happen hope you have fun!!

More pictures in case useful

I should have said - if you can get hold of some liquid droppers these have been so good for water play on the tuff tray. We asked for these for christmas because I am keen to build up her hand strength but I think you can also get more basic ones if your little one can handle something smaller!

Your set ups look great @lostthetastefordahlias!! I've found they play with normal toys differently on it to.

I think I need some more animals for our tray, where does everyone get theres.

@Motherofmonsters

Your set ups look great *@lostthetastefordahlias*!! I've found they play with normal toys differently on it to.

I think I need some more animals for our tray, where does everyone get theres.

I was thinking the exact same, I could do with some small animals. I've seen them in home bargains and b&mbht to be honest the ones I saw didn't look very good. I bought him some larger ones from ome bargains which are good, £10 for four dinosaurs or Safari animals.

Hello all. Can I join? I’m slowly going insane with my 21 month old.

@GemmeFatale

Hello all. Can I join? I’m slowly going insane with my 21 month old.

Morning! Oh goodness, yes please join, I've found this lovely group has really helped during lockdown. Love how honest we all are about how tough we are finding our days, makes me realise that everyone's finding it difficult and that it's normal to feel that way.

Welcome GemmeFatale. I find this thread both inspiring (easy to do ideas) and reassuring (tv & breakdowns ) so hopefully it will help!
Sorry not much help on the animals - I got most of our animals from the sadly shut down Hema - they did some great value sets. The PILs have also kindly got us some Schleich figures (the polar bear & whales) which are ££ but great quality.

@Lostthetastefordahlias. Thank you for posting.... your pics have inspired me to sort out our tuff tray with something exciting for tomorrow . It's been kinetic sand and cookie cutters for a week now as I've slightly lost enthusiasm. Just so bored with lockdown and so busy with work. DH is working very long hours at the moment (longer than usual ) so very little adult company/ help at home either.

@GemmeFatale. Welcome! My DS is a little bit older (just turned 3) but lots of the ideas here work for smaller ones too.

My no effort 'lightbulb' idea in the past couple of weeks has been to take some plastic toys (a couple of small buckets, boat and small plastic sieve) on our rainy walks and then find a very big puddle. Keeps DS busy for a surprisingly long time even if it's pouring with rain.

Should say, I buy DS one Schleich animal a month (or a more expensive one every couple of months). It's only the cost of a couple of coffees, but we're building a nice little collection. I've been doing it since he was 18 months and we have around 20 or so.

Cookie cutters and kinetic sand, @MessAllOver you genius!!!!! I'd not thought of cookie cutters. They'd work well with playdoh too.

I got the normal sand out the other day, my gosh, the kitchen and living room ended up covered in it! All over the sofas and in the rug too,nightmare to hoover up. I much prefer kinetic sand!

Thanks MessAllOver - I am on mat leave with baby DS & I think I enjoy the slight creative challenge of the tuff tray! Also we are shielding & dh also does long hours so life is very boring. Thats a good idea with the Schleich as I’m sure they will last for years. Going to suggest the toy boats in puddles to dh as well!!

@PinkDaydreams. As well as ordinary cookie cutters, we have some of those plastic Christmas ones where you cut and then "stamp" the cookie. DS likes rolling out the kinetic sand with a rolling-pin then stamping Christmas tree and Santa patterns in it and cutting the shapes. I much prefer it to playdoh as it doesn't dry out and no mixing of colours, which I can't stand .

@Lostthetastefordahlias thank you so much! All amazing ideas! And @MessAllOver definitely going to steal both the puddle idea and monthly Schleich one!

When I was a kid we had so many lovely toy animals from the early learning centre, very similar to the schleich ones - such a shame they don’t do them anymore and that mu mum didn’t keep ours!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!