To ask how much 'sport' you do with your toddlers?

[Fattyfattymummum]

I am so often confronted on social media (I know, I know...) with pictures of friends and their young families being spectacularly sporting... Hiking, biking etc.

With my two (4yo and a just-walking 18mo) we just about manage a potter around the village or an hour at the playground, but rarely more than that.

How much do you do with yours? How much should you do? What is realistic?

My now 6 year old didn't start walking until after her 2nd birthday so we didn't do anything active really (didn't crawl until 18 months old). Even now she only really does swimming once a week and PE at school plus a slow (very slow) walk to and from school.

I'm glad other people have hard to tire out young kids. My 5 year old wasn't actually tired after a 7 hour walk up Ben Lomond, DH and I were as I'd been staying close to her and he'd been carrying the younger one, probably 18kg of rucksack, child and stuff.

She seems to get fitter rather than worn out, so we're trying to find skills based things to try to wear the brain out as well - I'm training hard in the hope I won't be slowing her down when parkrun eventually returns...

I'm thinking border collie or spaniel in her ancestry...

DS is 3, June born.
He does an hour long gymnastics class each week, is at the park 2/3 days a week, usually for a good 1-5/2 hours, we do cosmic kids yoga at home and play footie in the garden.
I’m heavily pregnant so he’s been less active as I have been. He’s also at nursery 2 days a week and they run them ragged there.
I think once he’s at school and settled in I’ll find some sort of footie or rugby club at the weekend if he fancies it.

I'm thinking border collie or spaniel in her ancestry...

If I looked hard enough on social media I can probably see a toddler cleaning a toilet while a parent is playing violin while painting their nails and planning a hike up Everest for the child's 2nd birthday, does not mean I feel like doing it so apart from walking with me to the shop to get chocolate I don't remember DS doing much sport

DS (3) does swimming and gymnastics and can be incredibly fast on his balance bike, but he also stops and refuses to move another inch out of the blue, and yesterday it took 25 minutes to walk 750m because he stopped to look at everything, so I don't see long mountain hikes in our near future.

My elder child didn't walk until she was 19 monthstriedpm took a while to build her strength. She did toddler gymnastics from 2 years old, we tried rugby tots but she didn't like the structure. We used to go to soft play a lot too and baby and toddler swimming lessons. By 4 we started more formal swimming lessons at the council pool, riding a bike and when she started school ballet lessons (all cancelled due to Corona virus now ) We always did lots of short walks, playgrounds etc though.

my younger child has been a faster physical developer, he loved his balance bike from 2, toddler gymnastics and we were regularly swimming before Corona virus.

Lockdown has amazed me how far they can both walk, the 6 year old can manage 5 miles, the 3 year old manage 2-3 miles, with a bit of encouragement and playing games along the way to distract him.

My DS was more like yours until recently, but a lot of it was lifestyle. DH was abroad and I was carless and having to walk long distances in a relatively short space of time so DS was in the pushchair a lot.

We've moved and have a car do it's much easier for DS to walk around the lake/country walk because he's not had to walk three miles just to get there.

He hates his balance bike and scooter. Does preschool swimming once a week and preschool gymnastics weekly. Soft play 1-2x a week and generally another swimming session at the weekend. We aren't in the UK so different restrictions.

Mines a bit older (6) but he started doing Water Babies at 6 weeks old (amazing!), horse riding since a year old (he's inherited my old pony), Rugby Tots, All Stars cricket and he comes with me when I go running etc.