Not allowed a climbing frame

[TPtoys]

I need some level headedness responses please. Who is BU?

I want a climbing frame in the garden - on the grass for DS1yo. Yes he cannot fully use it properly yet but it is a good price and I would like it for the spring when he will love it (he enjoys the park).

DP is garden proud to the extreme. He thinks it will ruin the grass from DS playing and walking on the grass near the frame. DS will run around the garden regardless in the future but I understand the point. However the climbing frame could be moved along the grass.

We own the house 50/50. So should I give up and respect his decision or do I stand my ground too. I suspect there is no right or wrong on this one but I would like to know if I'm unreasonable to push for this.

@chipperfish we're south. We're lucky where we live and covid at present isn't too bad. But I would love to use the garden more. We spent time outside this year but him being a baby it was short lived and a bit dull. He doesn't really need presents and I asked everyone if they would like to put towards it so he'll have a few gifts and then money to help buy the frame - should we go ahead.

Your DH is being rather batshit here. It reminds me a little of my own DH many years ago when DD1 was a toddler.

We had just moved into a house with a garden, having lived in a London flat previously with no outside space. DH and his Dad laid a new patio in the back garden. DD1 then wanted to ride her little tricycle on it and DH said she couldn't because the wheels of the tricycle would wear out the concrete flagstones that he had just laid. FIL and I almost fell over laughing and DH was told how ridiculous he was being. He did climb down to be fair, and DD was allowed the tricycle.

Your DS is only young once. He should be allowed to have the climbing frame. Most of them can be moved around the garden so that the grass underneath gets a chance to recover. Gardens are for the whole family to enjoy.

We had our frame from when DC were about 18 months and 2 and a half. We had the big TP one but you could put it at a lower level and it's not like they were playing out there by themselves.

The secret to having a trampoline and saving your grass is to keep moving it every week or having an actual barked area for it.

Lol he'd hate our garden haha! We do have a very big garden but it has a big climbing frame from fatmoose, a play house, a 13ft in ground trampoline, a mud kitchen and then the various seesaw, hoppers and kid bits that they get stuck in to. We have a big decking area so it's not like we can't sit and relax but ultimately the garden is an amazing place for the kids (and their friends...when not in lockdown) to play.
And it has been a huge help during the last and this lockdown as they get out for fresh air and entertain themselves for ages....so yes, get one!

What a misery. My sister has a whole section of her garden sectioned off complete with a white picket fence and gate. Inside there they have the rubber bark chippings so that her son can play safely, he has a slide, sandpit, mud kitchen, lots of stuff to play with.

My sons had free reign of the back garden, yes it killed the grass a bit but their laughter and sheer joy of being out there, playing on a climbing frame (the big TP toys one that has a platform in etc) we had it on the reduced height and then increased it as they got taller. They had the monkey bars extension added for another birthday. We had the slide with the extender bit at the bottom.

They are teenagers now, mostly inside due to tech and musical instruments, not sure the piano would do well int he garden

Why does his want of a pristine garden trump his child's enjoyment of it. They really are only little once.

I have a different view. I think there are plenty of smaller toys which won’t dominate the garden and then going to the park is more fun because the play equipment is a novelty.

I won't bother about a trampoline for years or get one of those hold on ones. But an indoor frame would work for winter. Nursery has one and he loves that.

The garden does look very nice and it is his pride and joy but it needs to be practical too imo. I don't see the point in having a house with a garden if we can't use it fully.

Draw a line down the middle of the garden. Tell him one half is his and the other is yours.
Put the climbing frame on your half of the garden.
Also put a line down the bed and tell him half of the bed is his. Do the same with the kitchen the toilet etc .
After all it's 50:50 !
Then have a cup of tea.

Get one of the little tikes indoor/outdoor ones and put it somewhere really awkward - when he’s sick of seeing it indoors he you can move it outside

Be sure to choose a sand tray with a cover so it doesn’t become a kitty comfort station.

Your little one will only be little for a short time. Your DH can have his perfect grass in a few years when your son has grown up. Tell him to stop being so selfish.

We have had climbing frames, trampolines and swings over the years, last year my garden became toy free and my grass recovered very quickly. I do understand what your dh means as I love my garden now it doesn’t look like a playground but understand that you want your ds to have something to play on. I have to say at 1yo it probably won’t get used for quite a while, I think mine were 3 or 4 before they used one other than a baby swing. I would wait a bit or maybe get a sand/water table for the summer.

Or maybe a wig wam type thing for the garden? Your dh could grow plants up it so it blends in and ds will have a little den?

As one of the older posters, I think, on Mumsnet: you have no idea how short a time they are little for. Seriously. The days seem long but the years flash by in the blink of an eye. Your DH will have years to perfect his lawn, but just this short, precious, interlude when he will have small children playing in the garden. Enjoy it, make time for it, live in this moment. I look at my adult children and feel such fond nostalgia for when they were small, please try and persuade your DH to see the bigger picture.

We have one that you can move around. My DH regularly moves it to a new spot to give the grass under it a chance to ‘recover’. That can be his new obsession

It's not that difficult to reseed a damaged patch of lawn and it grows back in six weeks.

My sister has a whole section of her garden sectioned off complete with a white picket fence and gate. Inside there they have the rubber bark chippings so that her son can play safely,

I think something like this might be a good idea. Sit down with a paper, pencil and DH. Explain the garden needs to work for everyone in the house so ds needs space for a play area.
Work with DH to agree on the best space.

We got the Plum toddler frame with a slide and swing and canopied platform. Because it's so wide but short it doesn't move at all on the grass without needing to peg/concrete it.

DD was almost too big for it at the point she got it and I'd say 12m would be the ideal time to buy something like this so that you can get good use out of it.

We have a TP explorer which hasn't damaged the grass and is easily moved if you don't get the slide attachment. We do also have said slide attachment and a trampoline which have destroyed the garden but the trampoline has had so much use it's been well worth it to me. Now 9yo uses it every day year round.

My dad was a pro gardener, so garden proud but we still had all the play equipment. He just accepted while we were small he couldn't have the garden of his dreams. Once we became teenagers and you couldn't get us out there for love nor money, the garden was his again.

My dad had similar opinions. At the time I can remember us children feeling somewhat put out. But actually we found plenty of things to do in the garden with what there was, and, looking back, I think we probably wouldn't have used it after the first couple of weeks anyway. It would have been a rather expensive and ugly statue.

He objected when I tried to dig up the middle of his precious lawn to make a duck pond as it suggested in my Christmas annual too.

Some father he is,stand your ground the little chap will grow up fast and grow out of playing in the garden.
My x was the same but i not only bough a slide which my two boys wanted,i went to town and bought a ball pit/paddling pool in the shape of a racing car/sand pit and a den.
His face was a picture.
Then i did the same when grandchildren came along.
OOOOH those were the days.

We had many years out of our frame, we had the one with platforms and tent and walkover thing. We moved house and just put it whole into the van and then put it up to full height when they were about 3.5 and 4.5.

I have a lovely photo of a row of small boys (my two and neighbours) all siting along the walkover bit with ice-lollies. The frame got lifter over the fence to a neighbour when it finally became invisible in our garden.

My DF was like this - I couldn't use bike or roller skates or anything on the grass. What's the point of a garden if kids can't play in?!

My dh is like this with the grass. Dds slide had to be stored on the patio and only moved for use. I got fed up when dd got older and told him she was having a trampoline when she was about 5. He objected but I was no longer in the mood to discuss the grass with him. We had paddling pools over the years but just out for a few days at a time. The latest one just fits on the patio so it doesn’t interfere with his precious grass and is chlorinated. If we went bigger, he’d want pavers put down first. I also bought dd an electric scooter I spotted second hand. He cringed about that too. And the go kart. Left up to him, dd would have had nothing. Not happening on my watch. We have a very active child. Just because dh was happy to kick a football from dawn til dusk on his parent’s patio, my child wasn’t.