To not take my DC's on day trips every w/e?

[WinterSnow]

A lot of parents I know spend their free time heading off to different places with their DC's, country walks, zoo's, museums, soft play areas etc..

My DC's (3 & 5) are really happy playing in the garden, toddling down to the shops and can spend literally hours playing together with their toys.

We do go on trips sometimes and they have swimming lessons & DS plays sports but I feel a little guilty we don't visit more places with them, aibu?

Took DS out the other weekend to a zoo-type attraction. He stroked a snake, and that was interesting for 5 seconds. He walked about with some ring talied lemurs, which screamed at each other and scared the life out of him. Everything else he kind of ran past in a blur. It cost us £9 each. we had an ice cream afterwards and I bought him a swirly straw cup thing. That night he requested not to go out again tomorrow to look at more animals. He was just as happy running round our back garden with his scooter. Seeing as this does not cost us £27 for the day, I know which I'm happier with!
Swimming a few months back - splashed about for an hour then asked to get out.
Theme park a while ago (albeit a small one in our area) - wasn't too sure about the rides, raced to finish the crazy golf, threw some stones on the beach, left most of his lunch, came home.
Days out sound like such a good idea - then we go, wonder why it cost so much and vow to go to the beach/park next time!
Whatever your DC enjoy, go with that and have fun :)

My dc's are 2 and 5. We get out at the weekend generally but it's not really day trips. We just need to get out and about. It might be a quick supermarket shop, swimming, park, pop to see my mum, have friends over, local coffee, sunday pizza but it's rarely a whole day out as we're quite near lots of things. Plus I like to have enforced 'boredom' on my kids so they have to learn to potter. We have recently moved into our house and have a lovely garden....it's a gorgeous day today so I just want to stay and potter. The kids are being a bit painful but they have the paddling pool out. If I was stuck in a third floor flat with no garden I'd be keen to get out more but equally I'm conscious of constantly entertaining the kids so they think that's what life is about. There's no right or wrong. I can stay in happily with DD and she'll entertain herself for hours. DS is an entirely different kettle of fish and going out with him is the preference.....

Laughing at MadCats days out.
It depends on what type of child you are 'given'.
My sils are high maintenance, and need to be taken to the park, here-there-everywhere. Thank god i am blessed with 2 potter'ers.
But as other postes have said, you can have one of each. So that implies nature, not nuture.
Anyway. OP. stop the guilt. serves no purpose.

We do lots of things at weekends - often homey things like shopping & baking but we usually go out and do something more for DS. Might be a wander in the forest/ on the beach or visiting family but be something bigger like a zoo, country park, soft play etc. Proper days out tend to wait til half-term holidays. Last time we used Tesco vouchers to go to Legoland & longleaf but couldn't have done either if I'd had to pay with money

You are absolutely NBU. Sometimes the nicest, most relaxing thing is to not have your whole weekend timetabled and deadlined. To be honest my DS and DD are quite happy playing at home and going to the park as normal.

Yes it does depend on where you are. We don't have a proper garden - just a shared front lawn. Impossible to keep an eye on both of them (4 and nearly 2) so they don't play outside nearly as much as they'd like. We are very lucky to have loads of footpaths, streams and little foresty areas near us though, which are fantastic for nature walks. Got my late grandad's ancient binoculars, and a bug box thing, and a bird table thing. And we now have a hedgehog (known as Filbert Fuzzpig) who comes up to the house every night. Hence my latest namechange :)