Do kids get bored doing the same thing every day?

[Blahblahblaaaah]

I’ve run out of inspiration and I’m resorting to soft play every day. I don’t know if they mind or not. Just wondering what others think.

Mine are 4 and 1, and the range of things we have done this school holiday is quite limited because I can’t drive. Pretty much every day has been a trip to the park, cafe for a drink or snack, the local library for an hour or two then playing at home. They don’t seem bored, but then we don’t do high octane stuff and big days out regularly so their tolerance for boredom and mundanity is pretty good. DD was thrilled to go on a walk counting birds nests the other day which killed half an hour lol.

Oh God I have The Lists

Indoor Easter egg hunt - they wouldn’t have the foggiest what to do.
Swimming - can’t, two kids
Local museums - only suitable one is outdoors and fuck that
Farm day - did that last week, never again, I thought I was going to be sucked beneath the mud never to be seen again
Park - lethal
Shopping list- walk to the shops (it's chucking it down here but puddle suit up) - fuck that
Craft table - glue, card, tissue paper (pipe cleaners are a huge hit) - fuck that too
Baking - and that
Daytime bath - bath foam and coloured bubble bath is always fun with the boats etc - mine do not agree
Ramp for cars - how long does that take? 5 mins?
Outdoor play - kicking a ball in the garden - our garden is literally a pond
Soft play ✔️
Helping with chores (which actually makes more chores, but it's good to get them involved) - hahahahahaha
Bike/ scoot to the shop park, round the block anywhere - we don’t live on a block
Cinema - no suitable kids films
Bowling - at 3 and 9 months?
Painting - potato prints, paint a hard boiled egg - absolutely not!!!!
Make an Easter hat - on a serious note the 3 year old isn’t interested in crafts
Plant some seeds in the garden - you mean throw some seeds to the ducks
Make a water funnel to collect the mountains of rain we currently have er
Lego don’t have any, not really interested

It's Easter holidays.

They don't run during Easter holidays,

So basically

Anything related to crafts, baking or going outside is a hard no, we can’t go swimming and so Softplay it is.

They cannot stay in the house for any length of time. Which is shit but how it is realistically. I do not have potterers.

If you find it easier to go to soft play every day and your child isn't complaining then it works for you. They'd soon let you know if they had a problem.

It wouldn't have been my choice when mine were that age because it's setting the expectation of going out to child-focused attractions most days. Children don't learn to play independently or be happy entertaining themselves at home unless we teach them in an age-appropriate way. I knew I didn't want to spend my weekends thinking of places to go and having the school holidays cost me a small fortune. There were days where taking this approach was hard but I'm enjoying the payback now when I'm not feeling like I have to find ways to entertain my children out the house everyday in the holidays.

The problem is OP, that this is MN and soft play isn’t considered a worthy enough past time for many on MN.

My kids would absolutely love if I took them to softplay everyday 🤣🤣 but I don’t shit money. We do lots of crafts in the house playdoh and colouring is always left on the table for them to do when they wish the park everyday in the nicer weather. When my daughter was little if she got bored I’d put her in the bath and she loved it!

At the moment Lola I could not give a shit. I don’t actually mean that rudely to be honest but reading nice things people apparently do with their babies and toddlers is a bit depressing.

And mostly we don’t go to soft play every day. But it is school holiday, usual groups and activities aren’t working, anything outdoorsy really isn’t happening (I did try but really was a disaster) and it’s not even 10 am here and I’m already ready to leave home and DH and I have threatened to divorce one another so soft fucking play it is. Oh but why don’t I put on a puddle suit 😡

Tbh (and I am NOT a ‘messy play’ type of mum, more a ‘get a latte and wander round the park after them’ type) you seem pretty averse to doing virtually anything small children enjoy.

I hate to be that poster but I’m not sure what you’re expecting, you chose to have 2 kids and there’s no magic way of keeping them entertained without causing a bit of mess, being outside or doing something dull.

@Blahblahblaaaah I feel like you've been a tad over enthusiastic in ruling some things out (eg indoor egg hunt - show them if they don't know how, keep it simple!), though I get the weather/mud/miserable thing ruling some stuff out. If they are enjoying softplay though, and it's working out ok for you, then no judgement here. In the longer term you might have to consider a few different options, as kids need and enjoy, different activities (even if they're not our idea of fun).

If they're happy at soft play every day then stick with it! In a few months they might not be, then you'll have to find something else to do. Enjoy it! (If that's possible in soft play?!)

I take both of mine swimming alone. It's not that bad.

Agree on the crafty stuff - hard no. They can do that at nursery/school.

Just go to softplay. They're 3 and 9 months. They won't get bored because they have walnut sized brains 😂

Soft play is fine and at these ages they like doing the same thing all the time 🤷‍♀️

Mostly at that age we did stuff like staying at home and building wooden train tracks or Duplo, doing big chunky jigsaws, building an obstacle course in the front room, setting up a pretend restaurant with toy food, play doctors with a doll, teddy etc.

9mos just like to touch stuff and put it in and out of other things, experiment with it, push it around/over, whatever - whereas 3.5 is a great role play or small world play age. You can usually combine these if the 3yo isn't too frustrated with the baby getting into their stuff but not understanding the "rules".

Yes there is a lot of 10-20 min activities - I would alternate these with stuff like letting them free play, some TV, doing some washing which they can "help" with etc. We try to get some fresh air every day even if it is wet, but some days I don't bother. Some good stuff to do when you're bored of the park - find a local river/stream with ducks to feed (not bread - look up what they like, I forget), local farm parks, go for a walk near a field with sheep/horses/etc (don't feed these!) Or there are different kinds of parks which are better for wet days - maybe a maze? Walk to a local shop also gets the fresh air box ticked and something useful done, even though it's boring for the 3yo - you can bribe them by offering to buy a treat, give them a job to do, do a hunt for letters/colours.numbers etc.

Swimming can be great though I only do this when I have a 1:1 ratio - I don't think it's safe to take 2 DC.

Tripadvisor is a good way to find local attractions.

I also liked meeting up with other families. Alternate houses if it's too wet to play outside, and the DC get to see new toys plus the benefit of a playmate their age. You get an adult conversation and you only have to tidy up half the time. I have found this harder with DC3 (2.5 so maybe similar to your eldest) as he was born during corona and I haven't really met other parents with DC his age.

If you're at home with the DC during the week, I went to a lot of toddler groups. That fills a good chunk of the day and we would do an errand on the way home e.g. popping into local supermarket.

It has it's place, definitely, but so do other things.

… And that was a lot ruder than I meant it to be, apologies

We are having a hard time. Baby has something wrong - being investigated but no answers yet - and so the older one is not having much attention and behaviour is dire as a result, understandable but still just horrible to deal with on a daily basis.

At the moment Lola I could not give a shit. I don’t actually mean that rudely to be honest but reading nice things people apparently do with their babies and toddlers is a bit depressing.
That's fine though.If you don't want to do those things and it doesn't fit where you're at with your children then that's ok. Everyone does things differently.

From your update it sounds like this isn't the biggest issue for you right now.

If you and your DH are arguing and threatening divorce and it's only 10am then that's a bigger problem than whether your children go to soft play.

I don't think anyone would say putting a puddlesuit on and going to the park in is going to make the biggest issue go away. If going to soft play entertains your children this morning and gives you some time out the house, do it.

You may find MN has a lot of posters willing to help and offer advice on the big issue too.

We do

They both have a weekly swimming lesson, we go to groups, they have done a range of activities in the past two weeks including messy play, church (special kids one where they did ‘fun’ things, it wasn’t like they were sat in a pew) role play centres, outdoor playgroups, parks and so on.

I am not doing it for 365 days a year. Bur to be honest they do enjoy it and I do sort of feel like a couple of hours running round a soft play centre is better than ‘pottering’ at home, it is child dependent though. I know some children hate soft play so fair enough.

@hotwheelshell I'm maybe in the minority but we loved crafty stuff - DC has so many great memories of making stuff from the junk box (cereal boxes and that sort of thing), and it was definitely different than what they did at nursery/school. Not judging, as I know some folk hate crafty activities, but it's such a cheap way to spend hours. Imagination is an amazing thing!

Lola in essence I can have DS in the house if the baby is asleep and I can have the baby in the house if DS is at nursery. Having them both in the house and awake is just killing me from the inside.

I wasn't saying you didn't do other things, I was replying to pp who said SP had a bad reputation on MN.

@Blahblahblaaaah sounds like you have other struggles too right now, be kind to yourself.

But this is the ‘thing’ that currently is working best for the OP and her family. If crafting and baking worked for them, or jumping in muddy puddles, I’m sure she’d be doing a lot of that too.

It does

I feel this 🤣 mine are 5 and almost 3 one at a time perfect little angels sent from heaven. Get them together and it’s like they are enemies. They’ve just taken turns crying over blocks I said there is 2 baskets of blocks have one each but no they both wanted the blue block.

Just trying to help.