How do you spend rainy and cold weekends ie winter with your kids?

[2cent]

We’ve loved summer, spent most of the time at the outdoor pool and playground or the zoo as we’ve got membership. I’ve got no idea how to translate that to winter…what do you do that’s as fun as swimming outdoors or the zoo? Its not the same in poor weather…I was thinking about a leisure centre membership like David Lloyd but wow, it’s a small fortune!

We’ve got DL membership and it was a godsend when the dc were little if we weren’t doing anything else, it’s so close to us and we could just nip down for an hours swim and they could play in the soft play bit. Also came in handy during the holidays (I worked term time).
Still use it quite a bit with my youngest now tbh, we go to the gym together and he still
enjoys a swim. We canacelled membership for the older 2dc as they didn’t use it anymore.

We still walk quite a lot when it’s winter, even when it’s cold it’s actually not often too rainy for a walk we’ve found. We don’t mind walking in a very light drizzle but our winters here in our part of the SE are usually dry ish (much dryer than our summers!).

I live in North Scotland if we didn't go out because it was cold or wet then we would rarely be out!

In Winter cold but dry day still outdoor playground, woods explore/den building or outdoor farm with correct gear and get a hot chocolate to warm up.
Wet days - swimming, trampoline Park, softplay, cinema (most have kids club where tickets are cheaper), museum or indoor botanical Gardens.

If it's dry we go out, as might not get the chance again for a while. Otherwise, everything that @Scottishskifun said. Also playdates, baking and crafts, but that results in more housework.

Outside in waterproofs and wellies…

Indoor swimming pool
Soft play
Building lego houses
Table football/table icehockey
Playing around the house - hide and seek; making dens
Painting, junk modelling
Put on waterproofs and wellies and go out to splash in puddles, go on muddy bike rides, make mud slides into the stream in the woods
Baking
Make popcorn and watch classic kids movies: Shrek, Toy Story, The Incredibles, Beauty & The Beast etc
Mini science experiments: make slime, make volcanos
Visit the children's hands-on sections of museums. If you are near London Science, Transport, Docklands, Maritime and Museum of London were all good for an outing. And look out for interactive art exhibtions at Tate Modern too. They loved some of those.

I think just going out in poor weather is important to highlight how nice coming into the warm and dry is.
Having said that it's fun to be out in torrential rain, strong winds, snow or hail because it's nature. Just go for walks and enjoy the extremes..it's fun to lose your boots in thick mud, shake a tree to soak someone or break ice puddles. Possibly not so easy in a city or big town though.

Good activities are collecting things - edible things, pine cones, stones, whatever, photography, physical challenges.

I love the summer with kids because it's easy to just do nothing much and still have a lovely time. But given the weather is rubbish most of the time from September to April its just a case having to put effort in sadly.

@Everyoneesleistheproblem I do
enjoy the going out to come back home again, we have a lovely open fire which is just so nice to come home to.
However it was less fun with 3 young children, with wind burnt faces, 3 sets of wet clothes that couldn’t be worn again and needed washing, that needed changing as soon as we got in etc, now they’re all adults/teens and do their own washing and we can convince them along the walk that the pub is a good destination it’s much more pleasant!
When they were all small and demanding it was just easier to stay in and play games or go out somewhere but also to somewhere that was indoors!

We still go out to things like nature reserve etc just get wrapped up. Fine if it's cold and dry but not so good in the rain

We have gym membership so we often do family weekend swims. We pay £1000 a year but I think we get our money's worth.

If it’s raining we don’t go out other than to walk the dog. I cannot get on board with ‘put waterproofs on’ . I don’t want to spend longer cleaning up a soaked child & muddy house than the activity takes. if it’s raining then it’s Kinect sports, visiting friends or Starbucks/wetherspoons/shopping.

Any dry day, we wrap up & get out to the park etc.

Yeah I get it. My family are all farmers so being out all day every day in shit weather is just life. Mud, washing and being uncomfortable is just how it us. It's teaching the kids not to mind and obviously the younger you do that the easier it us.

It depends how old your DC are and what you have locally but when ours were little we would happily spend a morning at the station in the winter.

DC loved watching the trains, waving at the drivers, walking up and down the platforms. Add a hot chocolate and a snack at the café and we could successfully kill a morning.

Walk along the beach wrapped up and then to the beach side pub for soup or hot chocolate and sit by the fire, spend some money at the arcade then traipse home along the beach again. Wellies and splash suit on for paddling.

Softplay, cinema kids clubs, trampoline park, matinee at the theatre, arts and crafts club at the nature reserve.

Family menu planning in the morning for dinner and dessert, supervised shopping with the little trollies to collect ingredients, home yo cook it up

Library trip in the am to get books, supermarket trip for baking supplies, home to bake and settle down with books and baked goods.

We love getting rugged up (loads of layers and warm clothes) to go out for a walk or explore and then come home to pjs & hot chocolate!

If it's rainy and cold then we're inside mostly, not as hardy as the "put your thermals and waterproofs on and get outside" crew. Rainy OR cold we'll go out, but not both.

Swimming (inside) is popular. If they love swimming outside, then presumably inside swimming will also be popular.

Depending on the age of the kids:

Days out:

Bowling
Cinema
Softplay
Trampoline park
Rent a Badminton/basketball/football court at your local leisure centre
Library

Days in:

Movie afternoon
Build a den
Cook/bake
Lego/Duplo/Magnatiles
Craft stuff
Games marathon
Puzzles
Read
Kitchen disco
Daytime baths
And most importantly of all....do your own thing and let them do theirs, so much value in being able to entertain yourself.

DS does activities - so on Saturdays he goes to swimming lessons and then we might come home and watch a movie or go into town. Sundays are rugby then either playground, bike ride, or (free) museum if the weather is awful.

Live in Canada so we have snowy weather, which is a massive help tbh

Lots of outdoor winter sports

In the shoulder seasons we bike a lot

My son is 7 now so we just go to Jumpzone, swimming, he can't swim properly yet so we just sort of splash & he uses a float, he's getting there slowly, maybe the cinema if I'm flush or just Lego, gaming & films at home, he also plays sports so that takes up a few week nights & a weekend day, I''m not sure what his dad does though

In England, weather is usually mild in winter so we still used to go outdoors a lot.
The problem was always the dark!
Really cold weather might bring snow so that's fun.
The odd very wet weekend is spent indoors happily playing, baking, watching films, swimming, visiting family, hosting family.

Indoor swim
Soft play
Cinema
Bowling
Museum
Crafts at home
Baking at home

We didn't let any weather stop us. Just got thermal vests, a wool jumper and tights for each child, with very good waterproofs from Decathlon on top. And a dog. The trick is to always have a purpose for your walk. Collecting conkers for nature table. Finding five variety of leaves. Identifying birds etc. Woods are great in winter and the Woodland Trust has a great website full of ideas for dc.

And saved up for a course of horse-riding lessons which took place in an indoor arena when it was really foul outside. Not cheap but we got a course of eight or twelve each winter depending on what we could afford.

Depending on the age of your DC (usually around eight) you can start enrolling in individual sport classes they enjoy such as tennis, badminton, Pickle ball, etc and there are usually indoor versions of the training available during winter which is much cheaper than DL gym membership.

Then have set times for certain indoor pursuits. We tended to do crafts on winter Sunday afternoons. You can thrift materials from vintage or charity shops. And we worked our way through a children's cookery book on Saturday evenings.

Also You Tube evenings where you each choose a song to dance to in turn.

Large jigsaws on the go. Reading nook.

Ask grandparents to buy the shells of dolls houses, farm sets, garages, and then you fill them with home made or thrifted furniture, animals and figures.

Dressing up box. I sewed costumes such as a Japanese geisha, cowboy, red riding hood, mermaid, witch, doctor and nurse. Again thrifted a lot of the materials and those costumes lasted years and were played with a lot. Trick is to only bring out the box at certain times.

Lastly - always a winner - have the wherewithal to make a den when everyone is bored and snappy and the weather really isn't cooperating. Massive cardboard boxes with windows and doors drawn on when they are tiny. And for older children, old large double duvet covers (thrifted?), pegs, short lengths of string, old quilts, cushions, maybe a small stepladder. Make on an upstairs landing or roof space.

Thank you for all the replies so far

My kids are one years old and ten years old. I’ve got to be honest, Im a soft Londoner and not into the going out when it’s wet or cold. I just like everything on a plate hence the zoo where there is literally all entertainment (bouncy castles, animal experiences, playground, small funfair) and the outdoor pool we go to is part of a country club with tennis, restaurant and playground…I’m going to miss this stuff terribly and really just want an indoor equivalent I guess.

I know this sounds pants to proper resilient people, but can’t pretend 😆

What do you define as cold? I ask because if it's eg 5 degrees C or below, you can plan to do a lot of visits to London parks or similar. You could make a plan to be strict with yourself and then save the indoor activities for when it's worse. We like cold but not wet, so this is fine for us.

However, if by cold you mean anything below hot, that may be more difficult to fill! I'm a big fan of getting a membership for something and then absolutely rinsing it, so I guess I'd start there.

How did you get through the last 10 winters with your eldest @2cent? Surely it’s the same now as it was then? Unless you lived abroad somewhere with nice weather all year round?

That’s fine not everyone likes the great outdoors and getting out of London can be a pain.

But op you have access to so many museums and indoor visitor attractions - could you make a list and work your way around them?

It’s quite difficult with the age gap you have though so I understood why you are feeling stumped. Can you get a baby-sitter for the younger one sometimes?

Also a ‘soft Londoner’ here ~ some things we enjoy!

Trains/buses to the O2 in Greenwich ~ you can go on the cable cars (quite fun when it’s windy!), pop in the Lindt store for pick and mix, go trampolining, bowling, to the arcade etc etc. Plus shopping for you if you’re so inclined ;) So the price doesn’t go crazy, we agree on picking one thing each, and spend the rest of the time mooching. Works for us so far!

Museums ~ obviously some are one and done, but we like the Transport Museum, the Maritime Museum, Museum of London Docklands, and the Science Museum enough to go back over and over.

We also love getting an Uber boat down the Thames, the best part of the weather means no queues, and it’s pretty fun to sail along cozily with a hot chocolate watching London in the rain. The stops are close enough to do large landmarks (Waterloo/Greenwich/Battersea Power Station etc) without much walking to and fro.

Probably each to their own, and not sure how it would work with a 10yo, but we can easily kill half a day in ikea.

Depending on what your 10yo enjoys, maybe a bookshop trip to buy a new book each followed by a cafe? We love doing this in Foyles (nr Tottenham Court Rd station) as the range is hugeee and the cafe is amazing!

Also a child centric trip to Leicester Sq for cinema, Lego store, M&M world and burgers?

Depending on your zoo membership, if it’s for London Zoo (ZSL) it covers Whipsnade as well and if you have a car, it’s worth a trip out in wet weather as you can pay to bring your car into the zoo and have a DIY safari getting out to look at animals that you want to. It also has a soft play, (covered) train round the zoo, and lots of covered viewing points. And a butterfly house!