how many days pottering at home do you do during summer holiday?

[nnm]

First summer holidays and just trying to plan them out. Conscious that we often end up doing too much the last couple of break with DC ending up rally tired. How many days per week do you usually have plans i.e. playdates, days out versus just pottering around the house and maybe going to the library or something? Worried that they'll get bored but also dont want to overdo it as per usual.

I'm also just starting to plan out our summer holidays, not our first though! We have 4dc and just take it easy. We have a 6 week planner to fill in . Some days are big days out eg all day. Other days we will just go out for the afternoon to the library and for a cake. The library summer reading challenge is great . We have a annual pass for swimming so try to do that a few times a week that's an easy afternoon out.

Have a look into places near you that may offer summer passes eg a farm park near us does a summer pass which is far cheaper than an annual pass which we couldn't afford but that means you.can just go for an hour or so without feeling you have to stay all day to get your money's worth.

Sign up to any email lists for activities updates eg libraries, museums etc to see what they have on over the summer.

Some days we just have home / garden days.

Hope that helps, planning for summer is one of my favourite things!

Most days at home, we don’t have the funds or the energy for much more. We’ll do a few days out to local seaside as it’s free on the bus for my children, but other than that we plan to do very little. :)

I do a mix of trips away ( holiday or stay with friends or whatever, this year it's a couple of nights in London); what I'd call exciting stuff like going to the beach ( which is near), outings etc; LOTS of play dates; a few holiday club like things ( this year 2 days at Forest school) and LOTS of pottering doing not much.

I have 4 dc 8-12. We do a mix tbh. I only have them for half the holidays. Other half with ex dh. I try and do a day out followed by a day at home.

They are a good age for doing cheap/ free stuff. Long bike ride, followed by a picnic on the beach and a paddle in the river. Last summer we found a great spot where the baby fish would come and nibble your feet. Kids were completely enchanted.

Too much, I’m a teacher and we are doing two abroad trips, visiting both sets of parents and friends for a week. I’ve got a wedding too. No idea when I’ll Diet my house out.

Sort my house out, but also my diet.

Thank you. Six weeks sounds like such a long stretch of time but I also don't want DC to get overtired with things. How often do people have playdates?

I have two DC, 9 and nearly 5.

We do a week or two at my Mum's (usually one near the start and one nearer the end), where we do a mix of staying at hers and going out and about. She has a flat garden and a big paddling pool so when it's hot we tend to stay at the house!

The last two years we've had a UK holiday for a week, not sure if we will this year.

And the remaining three/four weeks will be a mix of pottering around at home and going out. Sometimes "going out" is a day trip, sometimes it's to the park or the big toy shop for a browse. We go to the library once a week and usually keep that up in the holidays. Swimming once a week, maybe a couple of soft play visits, feeding the ducks, walking in the woods. Typically we stay at home until lunch and then go out afterwards to break up the day, sometimes we take a picnic or go to a café/Wetherspoons/McDonalds (IE somewhere cheap!) for lunch.

I'm currently a SAHM so don't have to worry about childcare or anything, which I'm very grateful for. But six weeks is a long time to fill!

It’s 10 week summer here.
We tend to do one bigger thing a week and one on the weekend with Dh. Ie swimming, day out somewhere new, farm, or people over to us for bbq.
The other 5 days are as hoc local trips to parks, lake, bikes, chores, garden, friend pop in

We take a 10 day holiday in the middle and the rest of the weeks it’s a split of about 3 big days out and 4 days pottering at home or doing short trips to town

Week away

A 'day out' once a week. So this can be literally anything from visiting a zoo to going to the garden centre ,park, or cinema.

Play date once a week tops.

Rest of time ' normal stuff' so shopping, dentist, hair cuts, putting tent up in garden and paddling pool etc.

Last week do little, check school uniform etc, pencil cases etc.

@Forestdweller11

Sounds perfect. I can’t believe people have itineraries. Jesus, let them rest and have some downtime.

Ds has 8 weeks off. We go away for two weeks, after that we do the odd day out, but mainly pottering at home, with the odd last minute meet up with friends. I love the summer holidays.

@Forestdweller11 We're very similar. Day out once ish a week, playdate probably one a week, then park, library or home for the rest.

We’re doing 2 holidays, 1 abroad & 1 in the UK which helps to break it up. Otherwise we tend to do a day at home alternated with a day out.

I think we have a tendency to do too much as well.

Last year was 2 weeks on holiday, 2 weeks holiday childcare, a week each of annual leave where we did several days out.

I think this year it's similar but we will try and have a few more days at home

Are you all SAHPs? I worked so DS went to holiday club most of the time!

As many as possible. We have a nice house and garden and not a lot of money. We invte friends round and eat ice lollies from the freezer and play in water a lot. We will probably go away for a week or so most years, and maybe a few days out here and there. But try to be home as much as possible.

We’re away for 10 days. Then, DC are at camp for a week and I’ve organised a week’s intensive swimming for DC3 for that week as well.

Rest of the time we’ll maybe do 1 or 2 things a week (cinema, exhibition, theatre). Rest of the time they can amuse themselves, although DC1 is old enough to arrange to meet their friends themselves. We certainly don’t do something every day.

I work but I split the time with my ex. So for three weeks he has them five days a week when I work. I have them 5 days a week for the other nearly 4 weeks and work 2 days so I only need 12 days holiday to cover the summer holidays. It is convoluted though.

Most days. Summer holidays are 10 weeks long for us and my children have a 7 year age gap so hard to find things they both like and I don't drive yet so reliant on OH to go anywhere and he has to work. DD is happier pottering about at home anyway, she likes to sleep half the day (its half 2 right now and she's still asleep) and DS is happy just with going for a bike ride or a walk or a swim in the lake. The holidays started two weeks ago for DD, one week ago for DS and so far we've had one big day out and yesterday we went bowling, and we plan on a theme park later in the summer but no other plans.

I’m a SAHM and DD is Y1 so this will be our second long summer holiday. She said after the May holiday she likes relaxing days at home so I’ll make sure we have at least one day a week with no plans.

We’ve got a week booked abroad plus we’ll probably do a weekend/3 day visit with each set of grandparents (they live a few hours away in different directions).

We still have to pay for younger DCs nursery as it’s year-round, so I’ll have a few days just me and school age DD, where she gets to choose what we do, sometimes it’s a trip to a shopping centre, a museum, sightseeing. Sometimes she’ll want a haircut and lunch out.
This year she also wants to go to holiday camp so once I find out when her friends are going I’ll book her into that for a couple of days.

Days without ‘big’ plans we will play at home, go swimming, to the library, to a park, maybe one or two play dates too.

Closer to the time I’ll print out a calendar with a square for each day and write in our plans so she can see what’s happening and when.

Almost all of them. 🤗

We have a dog, so always get out for a long walk once a day at least.

-I like to have one day a week pottering at home.
-One day out (museum/playdate/cinema)
-one or two days at a sports camp
-one picnic at a 'nice' or different park that we don't usually go to.
-Library/ shopping etc
-Might have a cousin sleepover if I'm feeling brave 😳

We aren't going on holiday, so instead DH will take off a few days and we will do a Big Day Out/ beach day/ whatever.

The only thing I have booked so far are theatre tickets from Kids' Week!

Just got a calendar and will start planning our time. Lots of great ideas from everyone