How much of the School Summer Holiday do you spend at home with DC doing not very much at all?

[GiantTurtle]

It's our second day of staying indoors and doing nothing. We are all still in PJ's and so far the day's activities have included breakfast, CBeebies and Lego.

I'm in my 3rd trimester and have 5 year old twins and a 2 year old at home. I'm wondering how I will get through the next few weeks, feeling very tired already. We don't have a garden so staying at home means they are pretty cooped up. Our nearest parks are a drive away and honestly right now I can't even muster the energy to get them all dressed and washed! DH is out of the house for 13 hour days and home after bedtime, and no family nearby. We have only just moved so also no local friends yet!

I am feeling very guilty about doing so little with them and we're only at the beginning of the holidays. How do you while away the days during the school holidays?

Even better is one with water play where they can get soaked as that then also counts as their bath

NynaevesSister You are actually a genius!

OP, we've spent the first week of the holidays camping in my mum's garden (because we don't have one) but i was starting to feel guilty about leaving mum to do the cooking whilst my siblings, my DC and I built forts, had water fights and generally messed up her garden, plus i think DH was starting to miss us so we've come home and been to poundland, bought cheap craft stuff and some colouring books and plan to spend the next week doing nothing whilst the DC entertain themselves.

Virtually none . I've got to work 4 weeks (Holiday club/grandparents) and then 2 weeks family holiday. Possibly 3 or 4 days off which will probably be school shoes shopping etc. I feel a bit bad for the DC they are missing out on all that hanging around getting bored we had as kids! Formative I reckon, don't worry.

To be fair, of the days DH was looking after them last week, every day featured a serious water pistol fight.

We will spend about 2 weeks in total, various days, just doing nothing but hanging around.
We make our own terms to suit us though

We'll be out most of the time,but that's not always by choice we have 5DC and two or our children are asd,our DS12 asd is much more laid back than his little sister 6 and asd.She wants to be out doing something pretty much every minute of the day bless her.

But I'm very lucky in that I have an 18 year old DS,16 year old DS and 11 year old DD who all adore her so help out alot and our DS12 who is asd is amazing with her,I also have my husband here(as I'm disabled and ill)and I'm not heavily pregnant trying to survive through this heat.I really feel for you.

When we do have time indoors we watch movies,lounge around in our PJ's,read books,make cakes/cookies ect with the children,play board games,make dens,make playdough,messy play,play on the wii,watch weird and wonderful things on the internet(we've all learned loads that way about all sorts of subjects),have treaty breakfasts and lunches,the children have friends round,play in the garden,do lots of arts and crafts.

This week has been spent at home, mainly because we are skint til pay day next week but also as we have had a really busy few weeks so kids (mainly ds1 who has some aspergers traits) need a few days of nothing and no demands of them. We went to a wedding at the weekend which was particularly hard for Ds as he was expected to have photos taken and chat to people etc
I have set up all of DDs Lego friends, sorted the playroom and set up ds2s train track etc so now we are good to go.
Dd did go to her crimes yesterday and the day before we ventured to the bank and charity shop.
Today they have swimming so will pop to the local free castle before hand for a play
Next week MIL is up to stay so will do stuff then, following week we are camping and the week after that we are going to MILs in north Devon so 3 busy weeks. The next week will be uniform and shoe shoe shopping and chilling after holidays then will do some stuff the final week.

We do a mixture: 2 weeks holiday, week at summer camp; then 3 weeks with nothing scheduled so it'll be a mixture of many days pottering at home (we have a garden), trips to library/museums/parks etc (we live in London so loads of choices), visits by family.

I feel quite lucky in that DD (6yo, only child), can quite happily play self-directed/independently for ages so we both enjoy days at home.

DD has 9 weeks holiday. She went away for a long weekend for the first half week and after that she has four straight weeks of activities - one week of half days (sewing), one week of whole days (sports) and now two weeks of residential adventure/outdoors camp. After that she will be happy to see us and go on a family holiday! And at the end of August she will do another week of sports.

There is plenty of time for doing very little at home at the weekend and in between.