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.

I am loving the dog paw protectors! I always see questions on Facebook about how to protect crawling hands and feet, from now on I shall leap in with these

They really do work. DS was on the move from around 6 1/2 months. Here's a photo (anonymised) of him around 10 months moving at speed through the playground.

I asked a woman in the park what she had on her small babies legs in the sling, they looked lovely and warm and it was dog paw protectors! I was impressed with her lateral thinking with such a small child!

Our tree is coming down today, if I can find the tree storage bag that DP has misplaced. He’s sleeping and working in the box room which is frankly atrociously untidy, can’t see the floor for crap so fuck knows what he’s done with it but I’m assuming it will be in his chess pit somewhere. Just opening the door of the room gives me utter rage.

We played with Shopping List today, the orchard game. DS is 3.5 and he loved it, we played it 7 times in a row. We’ve got quite a few of them but this is definitely the one he’s been most engaged with.

DP and DS went to IKEA today to get a storage box/coffee table, DS pretty much built it using the electric screwdriver and the hammer, closely supervised of course, didn’t want a shoddy job doing! But he was so proud of himself.

Welcome newbies. Not sure who was asking (have turned the page on the thread) bout beds, but I’ve got DS in tuffing bunk bed from IKEA. I don’t work for them I promise. It’s not too high, so I find it easy to change the sheets, the ladders are in the middle and the bottom bunk is really low to the floor, DD will be going into the bottom bunk at some point. It’s only £90 and hands down brilliant. It is an utter, utter bastard to build though. Took DP 7 solid hours and then rejigging a part the next day as well.

DS is back to nursery today, I feel no shame, he needs the routine and we need a break from each other. I live on the edge of a city so am two mins away from some gorgeous scenery, hoping to strap DD into the sling and get out for an hour or two.

I fixed the bed! Felt v proud ,all in time for bedtime. Told DH it is only temporary and we (he) can certainly arrange a carpenter.. it'll never happen!
Then I skipped off to Pilates (still tier 2 here, but generally super cautious as we care for 90+ relative) and left him to deal with admitted ly charming excitement of new bed. No one alseep at all when it got back. Persisted for a while then at 9 I gave up and took both downstairs for milk and oatcakes nd finally are my dinner. Then took them both back to my bed for the night. Ooh the little ones routine was screwed so wakes ever couple of hours and has started to loudly all me 'mum' rather than mama or mummy 😔 sounds too grownup...

DH slept in the new bed 🙄

D's finally having a proper sleep now , but DD got up earliest and is happily stickering all over the new bed, nesting I'd say.

Unheard of for me to be the only person downstairs at 8.15!

I think we will watch telly all morning and then a movie.. and get a takeaway

Inspired v much by all your tuff spot ideas. So may set something up . House is dirty anyway so a bit if kinetic sand won't hurt so much!!!

Bee
Cosmic kids is awesome. No joke got me through the first lockdown. Blooming love Jaime. Started this as they do it first thing in DD school if they have to stay home I'll dego be doing this again.
I tended to mix it up and do a different active thing at 9ish everyday. alternate cosmic kids, sitting room obstacle course (Pilates roller, wobble ball, walk along line on masking tape, jump on a cushion) online dancey thing on utube , or nursery rhymes with actions eg heads shoulders knees and toes.

@Souperspooker. Congrats on fixing the bed! Though sounds like you had a disturbed night .

We need to try Cosmic Yoga here...I mostly take DS out for exercise but I'm not sure how motivated I will be if it's freezing and wet when DH goes back to work next week. We have a small balance beam and pop up tunnel, so might think of what we can do with those too!

Obstacle course!
It's all about how you sell it

@MonkeyPuddle ikea beds are the worst. My DH had a very similar experience to yours, involving a day bed for DD1 (which is now broken, as she had the audacity to actually use the built in drawers)

@Souperspooker hope the new bed gets used as intended tonight and you get some sleep!

Tree is officially DOWN and became a toddler activity montessori in action example from hell in itself. First debaubling it. Then "helping" to break off a few branches to chuck into the fire, which decided it wasn't going to light properly this morning (it bloody did after those pine needles hit it)

Then shrieking with excitement and gambolling around in socks, in puddles as tree was dragged out into the yard for future chopping into firewood.

Then trying to climb into the eaves, as I shifted five violins, one cello, a ukelele and a beanbag plus boxes of photo albums out of the way, so I could stuff the bags of decorations back in (before replacing all of the above)

Then - hurray! DD1's old Sylvanian family stash located and extracted from the back of the eaves by eagle eyed toddler. Thank goodness. Ten minutes peace for me, because by this point I am a broken woman and the floor is covered in bloody needles.

I forgot to mention a nice thing we did the other day, or maybe I did, I'm losing my mind, is it January yet? DD2 loves Beatrix Potter, actually we all do, so we coloured in a picture of Peter Rabbit (off Twinkl) and posted it to the Beatrix Potter House - somewhere I'd absolutely love to take both the girls some day. Anyway, that was a nice easy gap filler and got us out of the house for a quick twenty minutes or so

Plans sxuppered for today, had wanted to go for a walk. I know, should be sick of them.
But the last of the ice has frozen solid and I really don’t fancy driving down into the valley when it’s like this. And DP can’t find the tree bag. Twat.
So I’m off to hobby craft for more wool, DP will not be impressed, but needs must! I’m making a wall hanging for our bedroom, it needs bright wool and I’m all out.

@ReallySpicyCurry I read the tree/loft details with a look of pure horror on my face you are a better woman than I am!
DS ran into nursery this morning without a look back, so I’m happy.

@MonkeyPuddle I'm also completely walked out. 3 year old is really crabby and I'm talking the path of least resistance and putting the TV on. Maybe we'll go out later but I'm tired of being cold, even with my thermals. Nursery doesn't open again until Monday then I'm back at work.

We bought a Quadro climbing frame which has been great for physical activity when it's been too cold to go out. It's back where the Christmas tree was now. Sometimes it's a den too. Very good purchase.

Definitely don't feel guilty about using nursery @MonkeyPuddle. I've given DS1 to my parents for the day - they have a bigger house/a garden/no baby to eat lego or board game pieces/and their local park hasn't been turned into a walk in testing centre.

DS2 is napping and I'm ordering numbered cookie cutters on amazon. My brother really enjoyed the shortbread DS1 and I made him for Christmas so we are going to make him lots of "30" biscuits for his upcoming birthday.

Going to practise walking with DS2 later...DM has tiled floors and she frets he'll be cold crawling about her house when I'm back at work.

@ReallySpicyCurry has DD2 ever seen "The Tailor of Gloucester?" the 90s version (my childhood favourite Christmas film) is available on youtube. Its lovely and calm with helpful mice that sew.

@BullshitVivienne we watch the Minions film every day that DS is home. I feel no shame

@Camomila I’m jealous of you being able to give the kids to your parents! I’m going to try and extract my nipple from DDs mouth and leave her with DP.

I’m gonna go to a coffee drive through place as well.

Thank you @ReallySpicyCurry - it has been so tricky at times. It’s actually a lot easier now baby is here. I had a rough pregnancy towards the end and all the going in for checks at odd hours was stressful as we couldn’t leave DS with anyone. DH did a lot of sitting and waiting in the car outside hospital watching Wall-E on repeat! Thankfully DS was so accommodating - we’d wake him and he would be quite cheerful about getting dressed and into the car. We have no family local to us so it’s never been an option to form a bubble with them. That would have been so helpful at the time! It even came down to DH staying home with DS when I had DD, but actually it worked out well. DS hadn’t been looked after by anyone but us for 6 months and to just drop him off somewhere and then come home to a brand new baby feels like it would have been too much for him. I had a close friend at the birth (c section due to movement and growth concerns) and she was only with me for about 3 hours due to covid rules. I gave birth at a relatively good time as it was summer. A month or so after the birth things started to ramp up again round here. DS not catching colds and needing hospital treatment has been an upside to the situation so it’s swings and roundabouts.

@prettygirlincrimsonrose I’m quite free and easy when it comes to messy play - we have laminate flooring and it’s an absolute godsend. Chucking stuff about indiscriminately though, not a huge fan. I will tell DS to stop and help me to tidy up if things get out of hand. He loves anything glittery and would quite happily sprinkle it everywhere - so I have to ration it out rather than giving him the whole pot. I don’t like telling him no beyond things that are obviously dangerous or likely to cause significant bother to me, so I try to give him things to do that I’m fairly relaxed about. At Christmas he decorated the tree with me, which he loved (because, sparkly things) and I also loved, because M&S do some brilliant shatterproof baubles. I don’t get out a huge colouring book, I’ll give him a few pages. I don’t get every single pen out, I’ll give him a selection. I find he can get quite overwhelmed if there’s loads of choice and then the activity goes off the boil a bit then. I’ll stick DD in her bouncer next us and we’ll do the activity together. If I’m feeding I’ll sit as close by as possible. At the end of any activity we do we have a tidy up together and have done that since he was really small so it’s sunk in it seems. Other toys that have made things easy are stickle bricks, mega blocks, BRIO train set and a marble run. We’ve also painted a small section of our dining room with blackboard paint (£5 from Amazon) and he loves to scribble on that - and it’s kept him scribbling elsewhere.

Just thinking it's time to fill containers and the tuff spot with water to freeze overnight. ❄️❄️❄️

Hi hope everyone is coping ok?
My tuff tray arrived today. We've been playing with kinetic sand In it, it's fair to say it's a big hit. So thanks for that suggestion I'd never heard of tuff trays before
I'm m working the next 2 nights but wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2021. Hopefully a better year than last!

@footprintsintheslow

Just thinking it's time to fill containers and the tuff spot with water to freeze overnight. ❄️❄️❄️

Good idea! Doing that now.

I've stuck some plastic toys in water outside now.

Today we've had playdough and then for tomorrow we have Xmas cards and the post box and old stamps again. She loves it. I'm going to ask for people to save stamps all year as I see this as an ongoing topic.

There was a good idea in our Mud and Bloom box this week, for those freezing things.

Fill an empty yoghurt pot or lid with water, drop evergreen leaves, berries and a bit of twine in it, leave outside to freeze. Next day pop it out, you have an icy tree decoration!

Hello can I join? Wfh with 17 month old DD. We are very lucky as we live next door to in-laws so they do childcare for us while we work. Still a real juggling act though and always looking for more ideas to entertain! She got a dancing toy duck for Christmas which entertains her for ages but is driving us insane! We do lots of walks and have just ordered a puddle suit after she sat down in a puddle yesterday... can't believe I haven't ordered one before now.

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a nice evening.

I spent mine trying to get DD to sleep as she decided to chat 10 - 1. Got to hear the fireworks though

Happy New Year everyone! Still hanging in there. I’ve been terrible at doing anything structured activity-like with DD lately. Have been relying on exploring our new surroundings for entertainment! It’s been awesome having DH off work for a week or two and I’m not massively looking forward to doing it all on my own again shortly. Need to sort local childcare ASAP but I think our lockdown situation will make that a challenge! Nevertheless enjoying the snow - it’s my birthday today and I might be spending some of it getting pelted with snowballs :-)

Happy Birthday @Lassoftruth! I'm very jealous of your snow! We got a hard frost but nothing else.

@LassoOfTruth HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! :)

I need a rocket up my backside as I've found the TV on way too much whilst DH has been off. It's purely habit now, stick it on as background noise. Ds was whinging for it on before, I've not though, and after a few mins of moaning he's forgotten about it! I'm so fed up of lockdown and not doing much or seeing anyone. We were out everyday at some sort of class or museum or library but that's all stopped. Luckily Ds is starting nursery soon which I'm looking forward to as it'll be great for him to do different things and actually be allowed to spend time with other children!

Happy birthday @LassoOfTruth ❄️🍾❄️

Here's our tuff tray today...

Happy New Year, everyone! Bye Bye 2020, the year that just kept on giving (taking?).

@LassoOfTruth. Happy Birthday! Hope you have a good one.

@PopcornAndWine. Welcome!

I thought a fitting tribute to 2020 would be to go to bed with DS at 7.30pm, but DH insisted that I sit up with him till midnight. Bit annoyed this morning as DH is still sleeping and I've been up with DS since 7am .

We had a nice day yesterday, but very cold. We did some painting in the morning on the tuff tray and some reindeer and firework handprints to make New Year's cards to inflict on relatives. Then we went for a long, muddy, freezing walk through the woods and DS enjoyed jumping on the icy puddles and cracking the ice. Was a bit depressed to find our usual coffee and cake place on the way has stopped doing takeaways now we're in tier 4 . It was lovely sipping a hot coffee while DS played in the woods and jumped in puddles.

Really need to get some warmer gear though - DS was fine since he was so bundled up in thermals and snowsuit, hat and scarf that we could only really see his nose. DH and I got fed up a lot more quickly since our winter clothes just aren't up to sub-zero temperatures !

@footprintsintheslow. That's brilliant!