I've found out what hell is is and it's your kid wanting to play pretend ALL the time

[cabb]

Dd is 2yr5m, is very outgoing and sociable and has never been able to entertain herself but I've kind of accepted this now, but her latest thing is playing pretend and it's ALL she wants to do.
Shall we play bricks? No, be the mermaid!
Shall we do some drawing? No mummy be the mermaid!
How about some puzzles? BE THE MERMAID

Oh god, I mean I actually don't mind doing a bit of role play but it's definitely the most draining and pre 9am and after being up in the night with her little brother it's really hard to throw myself into the acting required to BE THE MERMAID.

AIBU?

I feel your pain...DS loved that honeypot game (where the bear is asleep and someone steals the honey pot, and the bear wakes up and asks who has done it)
Poor DH spent an entire weekend playing nothing but that game over and over again, while I was away. DS was always the bear, and its not a great game to play with two people anyway....

I'm a nanny, and I do enjoy role play with the little ones, but there is a point where it gets rather trying! My last family, the little boy for a solid YEAR between 3 and 4 was obsessed with playing lions. All day every day (or so it felt!) it was 'You be Mummy Lion, and I'll be Daddy Lion, and *his little sister can be Baby Lion'.

Rrraaaaarr.

There we go, job done.

This thread is hysterical 😂 I don't even have kids but I'm in pieces!

Argh, my DD is 4 and is obsessed with pretend play. I used to be a nanny and I hated it then, but I hate it even more now because I've got to live with it!

Usually it's "you be X character from TV show/film/book/game". Or, even worse, "Mummy, guess who you are!" followed by "NO!!!" if I get it wrong. There's literally hundreds of characters I could be, DD! Now we have a rule that she has to at least tell me where I'm from (e.g. which book), and at least that narrows it down. Sometimes I get away with just agreeing with her and calling her whichever name she wants, and occasionally answering in character, but other times she wants me to be a bit more involved and it makes me want to weep!

She does come up with her own characters as well (usually animals), but in a way I prefer being someone from TV because at least then I've got some catchphrase or mannerism I can use. Also, we're due DC2 in the Summer so she wants to play babies at the moment. All the time. ALL THE TIME.

I hate it. I also hate "you take this teddy/doll/Playmobil person and make her talk..."

I hate it. I also hate "you take this teddy/doll/Playmobil person and make her talk..."

This. DD is suddenly Daniel Day Bloody Lewis in this situation explaining heretofore unexplained (and unguessable motivations). “Teddy wouldn’t say THAT mummy. Teddy wants to go on safari but first he needs to get the audience in the garden to put on a farewell show. So he’s worried there won’t be a stage...”

It’s like word vomit.

What I'm finding heartening about this thread is that hundreds of us have independently come up with the same solution, of always being a character hat mainly sleeps or is in fact dead.

I think we're out of the pretend play phase as far as my involvement goes, thankfully. Now DD mainly acts out tings she's watched on YouTube. She watches a lot of very American family/baby type channels and I'm forever finding videos she's made on the iPad of her introducing her baby dolls... "This is Wyatt and today we're taking him for his nine month check-up" type stuff. The other day I kept finding blue and red toys around the place, wrapped up, which was a bit mystifying until I found her doing a 'gender reveal' with a doll stuffed up her top which, involved unwrapping the relevant coloured toy.

She's a bit developmentally delayed, and this is a lot to do with her making sense of the world, which is fine, but all her t shirts sre stretched because of the amount of time she spends with a baby Annabel stuffed up there.

Still, it's better than the hours of playing bloody paw patrol. She used to make me be Ryder. sobs

This thread has made me feel better. My daughter is obsessed with this sort of game and I thought there was something wrong with me because it fills me with despair.

Once she uttered the words: " Mummy, let's pretend you're jam."

Wtf?

I am so glad I have twins! I didn’t realise this hell existed!

Mummy, let's pretend you're jam

'This too shall pass' ... but heck, it passes so slowly at the time.

I would tell him to go to bed and he would actually fall asleep and snore on my bed.

My DDs games often included a large supplementary cast of her toy dogs, who in addition to all having their own name (of course) also had the name of their pretend character. DD's role was nearly always an adult male.

We had to play "shopsies" with my youngest- i use to internet shop ( google stuff- this was before mumsnet!!) and she would deliver...

Dd still wants to do this and she’s nine. Mainly schools now which I can tolerate in small doses. Tbh it’s a great insight into the classrooms of 2018.

The WORST is “you be mummy, I’ll be the naughty baby” as this is just a weird exaggeration of my actual life but with added annoying pretend baby noises.

I would like to be jam! As substances go, it’s fairly sedentary

Games that involve lying down are good. Ill patient, asleep whilst camping etc.

Also have her serve you dinner in a 'restaurant' while you sit on the couch..

I was so happy when this phase passed.

I have to be a pony for hours on end and be ridden around the kitchen.

^
All in a day's work

I'm feeling rather lucky. My DD likes to pretend to be me, and therefore I have to pretend to be her... So I can play with duplo or books while she "helps" me.

Loving this thread! My girls are in their 20s now but I do not ever remember engaging in role play with them....how I got away with it, I'll never know.

Your kids will leave home soon, jeez - enjoy them whilst they're young!

Jam is good. Jam does not move. Mind you.......

This morning I got "I be the ginormous dinosaur and you be the ginormous strawberry" I was all like cool yeah I can be a strawberry, they do fuck all so work away love. But then it transpired that the ginormous strawberry had to STOMP on the ginormous dinosaur and PUSH IT AWAY!

Fuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkkkkk.........

This is where a 13 month age gap comes into its own: they play with each other and always have! We very rarely get asked to join in anything. Thank fuck

My mum taught me to play cafe - I was the waitress and she was the customer and it just involved her sitting at the table with me bringing her snacks and drinks!

After finding a forgotten about toy police badge DS(3) is Jake Peralta and I'm Rosa Diaz we mostly shout at invisible people to 'STOP'.
This, combined with the endless questions, might actually finish me off.

I had the opposite with ds2.

I'd say "Let's pretend we're marooned on a desert island" or some such and he'd say "No, I don't want to, but if you want to play with me you can play trains with me".

And THAT was hell. Apparently I couldn't build train tracks right, and I made the wrong noises for the trains, and I was 'rude' for accidentally pushing his trains off the track, but most particularly I was BAD for falling asleep on the rug with one finger still on a train...

Im waiting for this phase to end. At the moment we switch between pretending to be a very strict teacher/Victorian school teacher, someone with disabilities (autism or wheelchair-dependent) and someone homeless. She also often pretends to be Florence Nightingale/Mary Seacole/Marie Curie or Rosa Parks too, which entails some lengthy 'scripted' exchanges, and interpretative dance routines.