To ask how many activities you take your toddler on

[Mammylamb]

I don’t know if we’ve got the balance right.

DS attends nursery 2 weekdays, I look after him 1 workday, DH one weekday, and grandparents one weekday.

He attends two classes (mini science and football) but gets taken on regular activities; soft play, trampolining, science museums, parks, and farm parks and lots of birthday parties and play dates. Honestly, our spare time revolves around him.

I don’t know though if he should be spending more time at structured activities rather than ad hoc. He isn’t massively keen on this and used to cry before rugby lessons.

My mum thinks that at his age (3) he doesn’t need structured activities apart from nursery and I’m worrying too much. But most of his friends go to multiple classes.

What do/did you do for your toddler?

In my opinion your mum is right and your friends are nutters! Toddlers don't need structured activities and doing too much at this age would only wear him out/down.

Personally what you’re already doing sounds more than enough. At risk of sounding like an old gimmer, this frenetic activity is a relatively new thing. 25 years ago my kids went to nursery while I worked (3 days a week) and tbh there are a lot of activities children will do there- craft/ outdoor play/music etc- and on my days off we tended to just chill, go for a walk etc

Weekends tended to be fairly low key things- again, country walks, with things like museums interspersed now and again.

Imo less structured things like rambles in the country encourage children to be creative... mine would play with sticks, build dams, do imaginary stuff, whereas if an activity is highly structured there’s no room for creativity.

Adhoc is fine. You do not need to spend your entire free time catering to what you think he would like. A day at home will do no harm.

Sweeney. A day at home is a rarity. Even on mat leave we had less than a handful of days at home. They were only when I was just out of hospital after an op.

My mum watches him some Tuesday, and she does let him have a day at home. But we hardly ever have one as it feels a bit lazy and wasteful

Having days at home, especially when the weather is nice and you can go in the garden, is a good thing. Kids need to be able to just play and learn how to occupy themselves without constant activities and being taken out. A mixture of both is fine. If you entertain them constantly (and also it costs money) how do they ever get bored and learn to entertain themselves.

The cynic in me also sees that a lot of these classes are about people cashing in on a business opportunity. It’s not about the best interests of the baby or child, it’s about serving the needs of the person running it. Babies don’t need organised sessions for singing, playing etc... singing to your child at home every day is going to be more beneficial. In my local library I was looking at the ‘what’s on in the community’ noticeboard and no kidding there were over 20 classes for babies/ toddlers!

It’s similar with the way baby products are marketed ... a colleague who is pregnant was reeling off the shopping list of ‘essentials’ she felt she must buy, and it included a video baby monitor and a (hugely expensive) rocking cradle type contraption complete with womb music. It’s gone crazy. I’m relieved I’m not having babies now because there’s so much pressure to be paying for stuff and experiences which at best probably won’t make a jot of difference to your child a few years down the line, and at worst, might prevent them from having the experience of simply chilling out and discovering their own imaginations.

Children need down-time. Time to relax, to process, to think, to dream. All this frenetic activity, rushing from baby origami to baby macrame to baby car maintenance 😂 with no pause for breath, benefits nobody but the parents.

When my DS was that age I worked three days. He’d be with MIL or my aunt those days and was happy for low key days at theirs or simple outings to local town centre etc.

I’d take him to soft play etc on my days off.

That’s it.

All the activity madness gets my goat.

Since my son (nearly 14m) got more mobile and started to walk I've actually cut down on the "activities" we do (and I'm back at work too). He is at nursery 2 days, 2 days with my mum and with me at weekends and one day off in the week. We play a lot at home now with his toys (inside and outside), also go on walks with him in a carrier, go to the park, soft play and swimming once a week. We recently moved but did used to meet up with similar aged mums/toddlers regularly so he could socialise. He doesn't do any organised classes etc. He currently loves practising his skills like climbing up the stairs, walking and babbling and we can do that anywhere, so just letting him run around the garden is a big excitement for him. I was planning to try and take him to a dance class and rugby classes in a few months but will see!

Baby car maintenance

Actually feel quite bad now. On Friday he had a tantrum saying he wanted to stay home

When mine were little their Dad was quite ill and couldn't work for a while so soft play was a rare treat. We did loads of free things parks, woods, museums beach. Just pack a picnic and go. But there was time at home to chill and play. This is mainly where their imagination developed, creating things with lego, story telling with my little pony characters, making puppet shows and so on. They also learned to play together with board games, card games. Went swimming as a family rather than pay for lessons. Structured activities only started when they went to school and asked to do them.

Do you never just stay in and play cars, build train tracks, do jigsaws, play doh (ok, I hate play doh), play games, read books, build a den out of chairs, colour, go in the garden and dig, sandpit, look for worms, or even just sit and chill with a cuppa and CBeebies?

When mine were that age they had no structured activities of any kind. We did arts & crafts at home, we went for walks, picnics, swimming etc. all ad hoc. They also played by themselves in the garden or playroom. Mine are grown now but I’ve been a childminder for over 19 years & I can tell the kids that do too much by how they can’t entertain themselves or use their imagination. Learning to use their imagination by themselves is hugely important & being constantly on the go or entertained all day every day & not being allowed to just chill is not great IMO. I’m not surprised he had a tantrum to stay home. He’s exhausted. Let him be a baby for a bit longer. He’ll be in school & structured activities for long enough.

What would be the benefit of adding more activities?

DS is 3 and doesn't do any. He has 2.5 days at nursery and when he's off he likes to ask to go out so we'll go to the park or the library, occasionally soft play. Other days he'll say he'd like to stay in and if we don't have to go anywhere then we do. Just nursery tires him out at the minute!

Depends on your child, I think. My son (2 and a half) really likes a routine so on my day off with him, I take him to a music class and then two play groups (lunch and nap in between), and on the weekend, he does swimming and football. That still leaves plenty of time for ad hoc stuff and hanging out at home but the structured activities help frame the days for him and he really enjoys them and looks forward to them.

But if he didn't enjoy them, I wouldn't do it!

He has a few hours at a time at home playing with cars, trains, play do, and random crafts (I’m rubbish at them) and playing in the garden. But rarely a full day!

None! He is in nursery 3 days. That’s more than enough. We do things around the house, errands, and generally just spend time together the other days. No need for anything planned. Everything is rushed and scheduled enough as it is. He gets plenty of socialisation at nursery. I did the same with my older one.

My DS (nearly 4) does 3 mornings a week at nursery (I’m a sahm) and then he does a gymnastics class one morning a week and he has swimming lessons on a weekend.

I think that’s enough. I don’t work though so he’s not in nursery loads and also we can’t really afford more activities. A full day at home with my kids would drive me mad. I like a bit of structure to my day. They have 2-3 hours practically every afternoon of unstructured play and that’s long enough

This has to be a wind up! “Wasteful to stay at home” don’t you get fed up trapsing here there and everywhere packing the food, etc etc. Activity stuff is all new, they need to learn to entertain themselves.

My 3 year old DD gets upset if we have too much structure. I feel we have the balance right, 3 days in Nursery she swims 1 morning a week with them (I pay the swim school but the Nursery take her, get her changed, and then supervise the lesson alongside the swim teachers before redressing her and taking her back to Nursery). Then she spends 1.5 days with me, 0.5 of a day with her dad (my ExH) and then EOW with each of us.

She likes to just be. I do take her to soft play or for a walk or whatever, but she does like just hanging out at home playing.

When do you get time to just do normal everyday stuff like housework? It’s Easter holidays and my DC have had a few mornings of watching TV/ playing/getting every toy they own out, whilst I do some cleaning.

My DS goes to nursery 3 days a week, and they have classes on all 3 of the days he’s there, and then my mum has him 2 days, and takes him to a class on one of the days and playgroup on another. He’s 2. I think it’s an awful lot of classes and activities but he seems to like them. It means we try to avoid doing anything too out there at the weekends so he can get some downtime. We usually go swimming, or maybe to the farm but not a lot else.

Ds is 3, he goes to nursery 3 days a week and he goes to toddler football for half an hour once a week. That's it.

On my days off we just potter around, going to the shops, watching tv, getting his toys out, visiting grandparents. In the warmer weather we go for a walk to the park.

He plays outside in the garden with his older brother after school/nursery.

Weekends are just doing what we need to do, sometimes we might be busy doing house stuff and other times we go off on days out swimming, parks, bowling etc.