Taking toddlers outside in winter time

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Speaking for someone I know.

Mum takes her little one out to the park 3 times a day during the summer.
Little one gets bored in the house all the time[and so does mum].

But she is more stumped about what to do winter time.
Little one gets too cold being in the park 3 times a day.

Soft play is only for 1 hour at a time.

What else could they both be doing please? Thanks,

We used to go for a walk every day, varying them by 'adventure walk' which mainly meant rampaging in the woods; 'exercise walk', taking a ball or a bike to the common, having races, doing 'gymnastics', flying a kite; 'play walk' to the play equipment; 'treat walk' to a local cafe or the library.

If the weather was really shite, I'd invite a friend with kids over, or vice-versa, for an hour or two.

Make play forts and castles with sheets and clothes airers and furniture. Pillow fights. Hide & seek. Arts and crafts. Let them be bored for a bit, it's good for them. Baking. Cooking. Dressing up. Reading to them. Making up stories and acting them out. The list is genuinely endless.

Walking to different places, too......

Anywhere there is machinery / diggers - doesn't have to be a vast building site, just someone up the road having a skip collected, or a repair in the road, or walking past the local fire station.
Different parks or outdoor spaces - feeding the ducks, for example, or running round with a football, or collecting sticks / leaves / conkers / acorns / feathers / different stones / etc
Going on to a bridge that looks down over a canal / train track / road and waving to people

Buy some proper winter clothes/coats/waterproofs

Decent gloves can make a real difference we use didriksons fleece lined ones waterproof and warm and last a very long time they are gauntlet style ones. Can pick them up second hand or sometimes on offer.

Layering is key in cold weather so youngest DS(2) will have tights on (easiest and cheapest way!) Then a pair of cotton trousers then fleece lined waterproof trousers or a suit if below zero.

A lot will depend what's on in the area but there are a lot of free options available indoors and outdoors

• Toddler groups/playgroups are a god send to me during winter as usually only a couple of pounds and you are inside with lots of toys and they usually get snack included.
• Walk to the library
• Wrap up warm and find a place to feed the ducks
• Toddler play cafes
• Swimming
• Museums (often have toddler sections with colouring)
• City farms
• Garden centres - especially ones with fish and small animal section
• Gymnastics centres often have toddler take over sessions
• Trampolining

Takes all sorts.
I have learnt in life.

... Just take them outside. It's probably the adult that's getting gold standing around, bit the child running and climbing etc

Lots of nice/good ideas here.

Get them in waterproof/ski mittens and they'll be warm enough.

Does this person drive as surely they can just take them anywhere - NT, beach , different soft plays , parks , woods , lunch out , zoo etc

3 separate trips to the park sounds horrible, and we spend a lot of time outdoors!
To be honest I'm not even understanding how she's fitting that number of separate trips out into the day.

If we go to the park (which we do a lot even through winter!) we go at 10 and stay for a couple of hours at least. We try to meet up with friends who have young children if we can. We take my son's bike or scooter and stay until 12 o'clock or so, then wander into town and go to a cafe for lunch, or just a hot chocolate and have lunch at home. After a little chill out at home for lunch and play, we might take a wander to the library, or he'll come with me on some little errand. If we've gone to a cafe for lunch we won't even come home, we'll just stay out and do something else after we've eaten. A day spent like this can have us finally home for the day at 3 or 4.

In winter we still go to the park, the woods, and the beach. Puddle suit and wellies and it takes the most dire weather to stop us getting out. But we also go to the library, have play dates, visit family, go to museums and so on for indoor activities.

Our garden is also small but there's room for one swing and a mud kitchen.

My mom used to run her own nursery and she always used to say there's no such thing as inappropriate weather just inappropriate clothing...kids like to play out whatever the weather...its us adults who feel the cold haha.

We used to do walks with an activity attached rather than Ethan just going to the play park. Mainly because the play equipment when soaking wet wasn't as much fun or was downright dangerous when you combined super slippery waterproof trousers and a wet slide.

There's a nature walk near us and we'd have challenges to find a brown leaf, or to find a stick that looked like a fork, or to collect stuff that could be dried out and used to make 'art' at home. There was also an area where people had set up fairy houses so we would look at any new ones and add to our own with new bits she'd made at home. We made seed bombs sometimes and would take them with us and try to remember where we had thrown them so we could check over the next few months if any of our flowers grew. We would take bags of frozen peas to the pond and feed the ducks and look for ducklings or frogspawn/tadpoles. During autumn we'll pick blackberries then go home and make a crumble.

Sometimes we'd make up funny stories or do silly accepts as we walked along and make videos or do photos that we could print out at home and make frames for or stick in a scrapbook.

Me and DH pulled up google maps once and looked for any green spaces within a few miles of the house and made it a mission to explore all of them, we found some real gems, our favourite being what we call 'the secret park' because it's hidden in the middle of a residential area, you'd never expect it to be there and it's a really compact space but they've built up a high tree line all around the outside so once you're in the park you feel like you're in the countryside, you can't hear any cars or city sounds. It has a play park, a little pond, loads of blackberry bushes, a community orchard and a flat field area with football goals and basketball nets.

Oh and a food flask filling with piping hot fresh from the oven sausages will keep warm for several hours so you can make hotdogs at the park for a really good picnic lunch.

In the 80s and early 90s I set up a mother and toddler group. We would meet one a week in the morning, but we would also spend time at each other's houses on each afternoon. We would give the kids a picnic on the floor, and each provide one thing (So one provide crisps, another sandwiches etc).

This broke the days io so well and meant the kids got variety and the Mums got company.

We also babysat each others using a trade system, and had good social lives through this. We were all fairly poor but happy.

We're out a lot, usually once or twice a day.

We do lots of playgroups, there's three or four near me that are good so we alternate those. They tend to be 90 minutes or 2 hours. We'll go to the library one day a week to change our books and do some reading, the park probably two or three days a week. Once or twice a week we'll go spend a few hours at a National Trust site, and once a week we'll do something a bit "bigger", like a farm or a play village, as they're quite affordable in term time.

I know, bloody hell . Parent must have a lot of energy!!

Depends where they live, there might not be nice free museums etc
For a toddler, and one child, a good activity might be taking a bus or train somewhere? Even if it's a bus for ten mins to the high street to get a book out of the library or run an errand / pop into the supermarket for something. That in itself could take 3 hours with a toddler and doesn't involve only being in the cold. Mum could get some flour and butter and make biscuits (there's a recipe on bbc good food it's literally sugar, flour and butter or vegan marge) that would take another couple hours, I used to do this with my toddler even when I didn't have a rolling pin
And you then have snacks - win win!

My kids love nothing more than walks crunching the icey grass.

I find the park so boring, the kids don't though but I couldn't do it every day nevermind three times a day.

I agree with the above poster. No such thing as bad weather just bad clothes 🙈

Check our local churches and community centres for toddler groups. Go to the library, soft play, swimming and activity mini villages.

Go out in the morning on one of these activities and then have a planned activity for the afternoon. Painting, sensory activity - so many fab ideas on Instagram. Even just getting out the building blocks for half an hour will be a good idea with little thought or effort.

We used to go out at that age in winter and still do for walks and park if it's not icy.
I would suggest she gets used to her child being in and finding things to do as this is going to become harder as she gets older.
Children need to learn how to occupy themselves.

Yes, I found finding a few different playgroups so I had one most days ready helped. But I live in a city, so much to do. In a rural areas I guess it's much harder.

Stay and Play groups were a lifeline to me at that age - do those still run?

You can get some really good indoor active stuff now even for small spaces like a Pikler triangle, balance board, Ikea do a good tunnel and playhouse thing.

Preschool is also free from 3 during term time, so can fill up some of the day and give mum some free time.

Beware cold hands - if they are getting pink then that's too cold. Pink/red and swollen is actually a precursor to frostbite. I had no idea of this 😣 Layers are really important - vests and leggings or tights help (yes even for boys), then some warm trousers, long sleeved top and jumper/fleece, then waterproofs over the top, either an all in one or dungaree style plus coat. Lidl and Aldi do them periodically. Snood type scarves are great for toddlers and much less risk of getting lost (or strangled) because they don't have an end to get caught anywhere.

Many proper winter coats will have velcro tabs on the sleeves. This is for tucking gloves inside and then tightening so the gloves don't fall off. But IME they get fed up of wearing gloves fairly quickly so we try to keep outings short.

Hands aren't a good indicator of whether a child is cold,the back of the neck is.

This. If the toddler loves outdoors, I don't see the problem during winter months unless it's raining cat and dogs.

Good sturdy shoes, long thick pants, a puffer jacket and a beanie, and they'll be ready for the Antarctica😁