to be dreading the easter holidays?

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Dh has just wanted informed me that he needs to work all easter. It means he will get paid a bit more (salary of under 20k so we need it) and time off in lieu, but it also means I have to occupy a travel sick 5 year old and a nearly 2 year old on my own for 14 days straight. Most people we know in our new neighborhood are tied up with family or on holiday. We have no money to take them anywhere, and visiting our old neighborhood/family will be problematic due to the travel sickness. Already dreading it. Just had to get it off my chest! Half term was the same and it was awful.

I'm not a massive fan of school holidays! It is hard work...the house always ends up a tip, it costs a fortune and I get zero time to myself! I definitely breathe a sigh of relief when school goes back!

I understand why people feel like this but am a single mum to a 5 year old and a 12 month old, I love the school holidays no rushing in the mornings and I get to spend time with my eldest hate sending her to school.

My five year old gets terribly travel sick, so we give him half a Kids Kwell tablet 20 minutes before a journey and no problems at all. Our lives have changed since discovering Kwells!

Loads of stuff online for ideas to do as well, craft etc. Easter activities are brilliant at that age. Cress in egg shells, decorating cheap hats for Easter, making chocolate nests etc. T'interweb is full of stuff.

My DH only has 3 days off and I have a 7, 5 and 1 year old. I don't drive at the moment. We'll be doing a LOT of arts and crafts.

I agree with what most have said, I love the lazier mornings of school holidays. All that Easter baking you can do, the arts and crafts plus what a great time to go and explore your new area with nature walks.
Get your child some travel sickness medicine - can't reccommend any as my children never suffered although I did as a child and still do. Don't let this rule your life, work out a way to get around it.
I think if you get yourself into a different mindset you will start to look forward to the holidays and enjoy them. I hope so anyway! My eldest is 13 now and I long for the days we could do all that stuff together.

Yes YABU, I'm sure your husband isn't relishing the idea of working all of Easter is he? The last thing he needs is you moaning about having to look after your own children for two weeks.
There is plenty of time to start planning activities, crafts, baking, Easter egg hunts etc. if the travel sickness is so bad take him to the gp for medication, or get people to come and visit you.
These 'I hate the school holidays' posts really wind me up. Spending time with your own children? Christ, how bloody awful!

I really don't remember either of my parent 'entertaining' us during the holidays.

We mostly played and did our own thing, apart from a few trips to the park/swimming with them.

Why do parents put so much into entertaining their kids nowadays?

I count down the days until the school holidays. No packed lunches and chivvying disorganised teen or stroppy 9 year old. Maybe a lie in and dvd afternoons. Jeez, I can't wait.

I love the holidays now. I have five kids ranging from 6- almost 16 years old and I love the no school runs and having no routine. The arguing gets on my nerves and the noise levels can be insane but I prefer them being at home.

That said, when they are younger I found them really hard work as I was more isolated and didn't drive. I used to get a box and fill it with different crafts in the weeks before half term and then when they were annoying me I would let them choose something from the box. This gave me an hour or two of peace. DVDs saved my sanity as well.

Make sure you have a plan for each day, the weather is turning better so even if its just a trip to the shops for stuff for dinner or to the library/ local park if you ensure there is something lined up you won't feel so aimless.
I love the holidays, and we don't spend a lot as we go to the parks, peak district and library on the days we don't have arrangements to meet with friends.
If you have sky, get downloading some programmes or films to help you out, somehow it doesn't feel so much like parking them in front of the electronic babysitter if its to watch a film.

Oh I used to feel like this too. We have no family nearby and all of the social groups closed down for the holidays leaving me feeling totally stranded.

My survival mechanism was to break each day up into chunks, of about 45 minutes each. I didn't stick to the timetable if we were having fun and could let something run on, but used to have a list on the fridge door, so that I could check what we were supposed to do next, if the day ahead suddenly seemed very long. It kind of drove us forward through the day. In order to survive, two trips out of the house were essential for me. We fed a lot of ducks, went to wave to trains nearby our house, went on the swings, went to the library or jumped in puddles. Twice every day. If we had a dvd or a programme we enjoyed we also spent longer watching TV.

6.00 - 6.45 - Telly time
6.45 - 7.30 - bath (yup - we had a lot of baths. Great value for money with a few empty yoghurt pots to play with.)
7.30 - 8.15 - breakfast
8.15 - 9.00 - lego time
9.00 - 9.45 - walk to the playground/welly walk, jumping in puddles
9.45 - 10.30 - snacktime. Make toast shapes to eat with jam
10.30 - 11.15 - playdough
11.15 - 12.00 - sweeping up with dustpan and brush
12.00 - 12.45 - build a den under the table
12.45 - 13.30 - lunchtime (may be able to eat in the den)
13.30 - 14.15 - walk to library
14.15 - 15.00 - read in library
15.00 - 16.30 - walk back from library, with snack on the way
16.30 - 17.15 - telly time
17.15 - 18.00 - supper
18.00 - 18.45 - bathtime

Have you got a library locally? We used to use them a lot for cheap rented dvds. Other cheap activities include: papier mache model making (cover a balloon in papier mache to make 2 masks); mask painting; balloon tennis in the lounge (bashing a balloon to and fro); cooking; painting/drawing pictures; hotwheels cars; story time/books; dressing up; makeovers; singing/lounge disco; swimming or soft play (had a cheap one locally); popcorn making; pasta necklaces/popcorn necklace making; playing shops; baths at any time of the day; indoor sandpit (I used our old babybath and filled it with playsand/yoghurt pots); hide and seek; tickle fights . . .

Hope that helps. I would switch activities every day for the list, but if they wanted to build another den or whatever, that's OK - you can switch back. Don't feel guilty about you being bored (I hated being at home with toddlers) - just get through each day with a variety of short activities for them to do.

Best of luck. If the weather's nice, it will be so much easier than Feb half term.

And yes, I rarely entertained my children except getting them things down to play with when they were younger and the odd trip to the park.

When mine were young they played up when they got bored like most kids, so I found the trick was to keep them occupied by getting toys out and crafts they haven't played with for a while.

Now my favourite times is the holidays. We have so many dvd and duvet days.

Jesus, why would anyone need a plan for every day?

As above, I love it when my dc break up from school, no rushing around, I've booked a few days off work so plan on a couple of cheap days out that I've already put money aside for.
As mentioned, baking, park......
It doesn't have to be mega expensive.
Enjoy them why they are little, teenage years are not fun

I sympathise OP. I find it very hard too. I'm freelance and work from home, and DP has a FT job so it mostly falls on me to take time off and have the kids in the holidays. It's not that I don't like being with my own kids, it's just that I love work, and I like being on my own during the working day, and that work-family balance suits me fine. All day with the kids is hard for me. I think 14 days straight with anyone would be difficult really. If it was your parents I'm sure people would sympathise!

Also, mine have a big age gap and don't enjoy the same things, and they wind each other up something rotten, so whatever nice activities I try to plan, holidays are filled with bickering and tears. Sigh.

We will be:

Going for walks
Easter egg making (I'm planning to get a cheap supermarket kit)
Egg decorating and rolling, with friends if I can round any up
Maybe some camping/days at the beach if weather is OK
Going to Ikea - a day out they both like, even if we don't buy stuff.
Gardening
Baking
Possibly having some friends round to play and vice versa
Watching shedloads of telly / playing computer games

I'm a teacher, I love the holidays.
I have a 3 and a 1 year old. Hmmmmm.
I might spend two weeks locked in the loo.
Hope your Easter goes well.
Pre book a Costa morning plus pedicure from your partner before he goes away is my advice.

Ooh sorry, that was long

But it's not much help to the OP to gloat about how easy you find the holidays, is it really? It's probably better to suggest concrete ideas she can use.

'Why do parents put so much into entertaining their kids nowadays?' Well sometimes life doesn't work out as we hope. As a kid I just piled outside with a group of mates and played in the street or in our garage, if it was raining. But I was older than the OPs kids. And I had friends nearby, whose parents also let them out to play. When I had my own kids, I was shocked to find that their friends all went out during the holidays/away to stay with family/ and that 11 or 12 hours between dh driving off to work and coming home again could be a very very long time for 5 days per week - especially with only MN for adult company.

I love the school holidays, no set routine and lots of time together.

If people dread the school holidays, why have children in the first place?

I'm amazed how many parents enjoy the holidays because they don't have to do the school run!

Getting up at 7.30am and taking them to school is a small price to pay for 6 hours of time to myself!

Worra - as I've explained, it's how I survived. I didn't necessarily stick to the plan, but if the kids were fractious at 10am, having done various activities for 4 hours, then I could look at my list, and remember some of the great ideas I had.

I didn't say that anyone else had to do it - just that it worked for me when I found the prospect of holidays daunting.

No matter how life works out, imo kids should also learn to entertain themselves as well as having some input from parents.

But all too often, I'm reading some parent's days resemble that of a professional child minder.

Structure is not a bad thing, but I think some kid's lives can be too structured and their parents still feel they're not doing enough with them.

The only good thing about school holidays is not having to be up at 6am and out the door at 8.15th.

Trying to occupy four dcs with hardly any money and relying on expensive unreliable public transport is a nightmare. Even a trip to the park is difficult with a toddler who want to be out of the pushchair but bolts at every opportunity.

There's not much to do where we live that doesn't cost a small fortune on entrance and/or busses and trains to get there.

If they had half price bus and train fare during the school holidays they'd make a fortune as imo more people would use it.

If people dread the school holidays, why have children in the first place?
really??

I didn't plan to dread the holidays. I planned to do fun things with my children and friends. Moving house away from friends, and having less money to do exciting things; having boys who were mad for sports and spent their holidays missing their mates and their sporting activities; having no dh to share the load with - these all made it a bit different to how I expected.

However, we survived, they are now great teens, very able to entertain themselves, very able to come up with a variety of fun things to do, kind, funny, clever . . .

If they had half price bus and train fare during the school holidays they'd make a fortune as imo more people would use it.

I have to say when I read posts like that, it reminds me I'm lucky to live in London with the Zip Oyster card system.

I think it can be hard, particuarly if you have DCs who need to be entertained.

It might be easiest to make a plan for an activity of some sort for each day.

Are you certain all of your DC1's friends will be off doing family things for the whole time? Worth having a chat now with some of the other parents at the school run to try to arrange some playdates over the holidays.

When you say you have no money, is that 100% the situation, or is there a small budget? Worth finding out if there's anything going on at your local library or leisure centre, our leisure centre does have some activities like trampolining or football lessons etc which are normally under £5 a session for the 5 year old. (throw in a walk there and a walk back, that's half a day gone).

The local library to us is doing 'stories in the park' if the weather is nice (someone coming to read out stories for 20 minutes), but with a walk there and back, play in the park afterwards, that's a half day gone.

I tend to think they can entertain themselves fine at 5 for half a day at a time, but you do need to get them out doing some exercise to avoid the whinging.

I love holidays also. All the school and nursery pick ups and drop offs are more effort than just keeping them with me

What do you have where you live? If you go online and type in area you can usually find lots of local activities over the holidays.

It's also nice enough that you can go for a walk through a park or woods, get and ice cream and end, and walk back. Climbing logs and trees as you go or collecting stuff. That's easily a few hours at a time

What do you usually do at the weekend? Surely it's just longer version of that?