Is it possible to have a ‘chilled day at home’ with under 5s?

[watchitquietlyplease]

We’ve had this today and in all honesty it’s been a verrrrry long day. They’ve played nicely for some of it but for me the day has dragged on a bit.

Am I doing it wrong? I do wonder this as I feel like I’m always out with my kids but my friends don’t seem to be and I always wonder what they do at home with their children! (Most of them only have one child if that’s relevant!)

I used to with my dc but it absolutely meant heavily utilising tv time.
This was before iPads so they used to do CBeebies till say 9ish we’d mix it up with some garden/trampoline time. Board games.
Lunch, Disney movie, baking, crafts and then TV till bath time.
Wasn’t often but used to quite like no pressure to go anywhere. This would not work for my nieces and nephews however all kids are different (and everyone has different approaches to screens).

Mine love a home day and don’t use screens, it’s not obligatory. Everyone’s got a different disposition, for the first few days of the holidays my school age DC wanted to stay in wearing just pants reading, doing play dough, making up songs, crafting and playing with the younger one.

I have chilled days at home fairly often with my 2 and 5yo. It just have to not care much about how much stuff they get out.

They'll play together with bigger toys, make things with lego/duplo, do some drawing, maybe play in the garden for a bit. We might read some books. They'll run around and do pretend play together.

We usually have a short walk to get the 2yo to sleep in the pushchair.