Do you have a play room for your 1/2 year old and if you do, do you leave them alone. I don't get it.

[bubblegum7474]

So it seems everyone has a nursery prior to baby being born and then eventually had a play/toy area. DD is 22months and I'm trying to sort out her play area. We currently have it all in the living/diner. We have a relatively large 2 bed house and she has her own room to sleep in but I keep all her toys downstairs as that's where we spend most our time and I can watch her play and keep an eye on her. Tbh she wouldn't even stay there alone.
I've been looking at some YouTube videos for inspiration and everyone has their play/read setup in the kids bedroom. I'm unsure about what to do here. It works for us as a family to have it all in the living//diner but is it ok? Decor wise I don't mind it being a play area.
I must mention there is a shelf in her room with books but that's really it. We have it all in the living room.
What do you have and I would be interested in hearing if you leave your child to play by themselves in a room at such a young age.

All in the living room too. Don’t see why you wouldn’t want them in the space the family spends the most time.

When mine were little, most of the toys were kept downstairs. I'm not going to lie, I absolutely detested it. There was so much clutter everywhere. I was like you though, I didn't like leaving the kids upstairs alone while I was downstairs etc. They also wanted me to play with them constantly.

We moved house last year and had room for all their toys to go in their room. They still have a toy box in the living room (which is nice and matches the rest of the furniture). They're capable now of bringing stuff downstairs and tidying it back upstairs at the end of the day. They're 5 and 7 now.

Nope kids want to be with you when young and I don't know any parent that didn't have toys in the living room or kitchen/family room. I don't think my kids spend much time in their rooms at all unless studying or sleeping and they are teens!

I have a play room but we spend most of our time in the house in there. We then use our living room when the toddler goes to bed.

DD is 20 months, sleeps in our room and all books and toys are downstairs. We’ve got a library area where she has her own shelf, toy chest under the window at the other end in the living room and she uses the full run of downstairs. She plays on her own for chunks of the day while I’m cooking or pottering, “reading” her books, playing with cars, tea set, assorted kitchen utensils, drawing mat, crayons and paper pad etc. She ends up using the whole space through the course of the day and then it all gets tidied away at bedtime.

She had a bedtime she was going to move into but it’s had to become DH’s office and I don’t know what’s going to happen if he stays WFH forever but the current set up works for all of us at the moment.

I still wouldn’t leave her playing in a room upstairs while I was downstairs. If we were on one level I suppose I might but she’s more likely to entertain herself if she can see or hear me around and knows she can check in as and when.

We never had one. We live in a small two bed house and my son has his room to sleep in but we've always played in the lounge (which is also the kitchen ). When he was little and crawling we had a huge play pen which took up most of the lounge and he could safely roam in it and have his toys in there. Although I still never left him by himself because he was still so little. I've only started leaving my son to play in his room by himself (as in, he's sitting in his box room playing with trains for ten minutes whilst I can still hear what he's doing) when he was around 3, I think. He still doesn't like being by himself much so he's usually hanging around near me anyway.

DS is two, most toys are downstairs, we had a lot of storage built in either side of the chimney breast, with bookshelves above, plus a nice-ish toy box, and a MUTable (amazing for multi purpose play and look quite nice) there's no hiding the ride on rocking dinosaur though....We have some books downstairs but most on bookshelves in his room as he has stories before bed and before nap. The books make their way downstairs at various points to be read and join the collection in the cupboard, but every now and then I take a load back up. He does have toys in his room, he will play with them while I'm putting his washing away, cleaning his room or sometimes we just put the radio on and hang out up there. He likes his room a lot and I think that helps him like going to sleep in there.

We have a play room, shes only alone in there really if I go the toilet. I spend a good few hours a day properly playing with her in there, she has a speech delay so it's extra important for her to have the interaction. Then downstairs she has a toy cupboard in one of the side boards where she can get toys out to play on her own while I'm making dinner etc. I mostly do chores when she naps or she "helps" like I'll give her a wet cloth and she will copy me/ fling water everywhere with it if I'm cleaning, or if I'm hoovering she likes to have a go of that or sometimes just turn it on and off while I'm trying to use it then shriek with laughter.

We have a play room which is our spare bedroom. Had to turn it into a play room as we are being over run with toys. They both have a room each also has toys. My living room is still constantly littered with toys! We are now going to convert our garage in to a downstairs playroom to house more toys and the loft is also full of toys 😂🙈 My youngest has just turned 1 so we will hopefully be getting rid of some stuff after Xmas. We would like another room downstairs anyway so as they get older it's somewhere they can have friends in.

My 3yr old can play upstairs in the playroom and I can still hear her from living room. It actually works quite well as she plays with the toys that she can't play with when her sister is around and would eat everything. Like barbie's hundreds of tiny pieces like shoes! We have a sofa (sofa bed) and tv etc and we use the sofa bed when someone comes to stay.

The new playroom downstairs will be next to the Livingroom so I'll be able to keep my eye on them (well once the 1yr old is less dangerous so at least another yr). It will have a sofa so I'll probably spend time in there with them and hopefully my living room will be toy free 🤞🏻

At that age my son only played with toys in the living room. He's 3 now and toys have naturally made their way to his room just for space reasons and he has the choice of where to play. He loves playing alone in his room.

My son is 1 and I suppose he has a ‘playroom’ but this is just by pure design of the house atm. We live in a Victorian terrace and the previous owners extended at the back to create a kitchen diner. Then knocked though from the living room to the old dining room to create a big living room/study/library space as they called it. (Sounds much grander than it is). We turned the study/library space into a playroom for DS it is a room but as it is open to the living room I can see him when sat in the living room. I tend to actually sit in the playroom with him atm to be honest though. At the moment he isn’t old enough to be alone upstairs unless in bed sleeping. If you are worried about toys taking over could you do toy to rotation- have toy storage in her room but have some downstairs. Have a nice storage type area downstairs so you can hide it in some way in an evening. Then rotate the toys every couple of weeks changing what is upstairs and downstairs? It is a bit of work but other have told me toy rotation is beneficial for the child as well.

We wanted them in eyesight at that age! We put a couple of the IKEA trofast units in the living room and just made sure the toys were all tidied away each evening . Trofast is great as we had eg Fireman Sam you'd in one tray and could just pull it out when they wanted to play with it. We're only now letting them take over one of the downstairs rooms as a teen snug and they're 12 and 10!

Surely it depends on the size of your house? Our playroom is separate to the proper sitting room but in our last house we had toys in the sitting room.

When I had a 2 bed house and one DC, I think I had most of her toys downstairs until she started school. Then just a toy box downstairs.

Then moved to a bigger house that I'm still in and since have had two more kids. We have the biggest reception room downstairs as the playroom and the second as the living room. The kids don't play in the playroom, because they want to be with is and where the TV is. It's not a wasted room because it's basically a toy storage room and I couldn't live without it. Middle DC also has toys in her room, but younger DC and shared toys are all downstairs. Teen DC uses the playroom the most (to sit on the sofa with her laptop/games consoles). We're just in the process of moving and I didn't consider anywhere without a playroom potential, for the storage mostly. I don't want to be chasing the kids to take all their toys upstairs every day. Having said that, the younger two do their playing in the living room.
We have one toy chest in the living room that I rotate.

At your dd's age, I would definitely have the bulk of the toys in the living room. But storing some in her bedroom and rotating is a good idea too.

As for the nursery, they are an unnecessary luxury. Babies sleep in the parents room on average for 6-12 months. My first two didn't have one, but I really enjoyed decorating one for the third, when we finally had the space. Again, it's always just been a storage room for his things, he's 3 now and still prefers to sleep in our bed. But it was quick to decorate and all his clothes and miscellaneous items have a place there. Definitely not an essential.

Toys are kept in the playroom when little then some in bedrooms when they are older. I think that’s fairly standard.

We have a small playroom, which is where the majority of the toys are stored. It’s across from the living room, so everything kind of migrates back and forth. I’m grateful to have a place to put it all at the end of the day, though, so the living room can become kid-free after bedtime.

My twins are five and have a train table with train set, books and a Grimms rainbow in their room. Just enough to keep them entertained when they wake early. My DD is nearly two and just has books and a growing collection of soft toys. They pretty much all stay downstairs the majority of the time and move between the living room, playroom and kitchen/diner, which explains why I am removing toys from the kitchen. I expect the twins will want some space to themselves in the next couple of years, but for now it’s quite nice to see the ways they all play together. There’s also absolutely no way the toddler could be left on her own for any extended period, unless I wanted my entire house to be covered in felt tip.

On my way (online) to IKEA for storage for the living room. I won't let anyone make me feel bad about keeping the toys in the living room. I love DD being with me and it makes me happy watching her play. Granted the toys are near the TV but I don't have a lot of space. She moves around from Peppa pig to her books to spreading all her toys around the house. But thank you for being honest!

The playroom is small and for storage, they play with toys in the living room. But, at the end of the day toys go back in the playroom, I shut the door and have a living room that has no toys in it. Works for us!

All the toys were downstairs for my kids until they got to 3-4ish and they want to go off and play more by themselves.

Otherwise what would be our dining room is a playroom at the very heart of the house between the kitchen and living room.

I couldn't leave mine unsupervised until 3yo at the very minimum and that is with me in a nearby room. Both too adventourous/ death wish

We were lucky enough to have a dedicated playroom when the DC were small but in reality it was just somewhere to store everything until they hit around age 5 and brought friends for play dates. Prior to that I would keep a large wicker basket in the lounge that everything got chucked back in each night so the lounge quickly became child free in the evening. I would rotate the toys in the basket every few weeks so they always felt surprised at different toys appearing. The biggest benefit of a separate area for toys outwith their bedroom is that their bedroom is primarily associated with sleeping in with only books allowed so no trouble with them getting out of bed to play with toys at bedtime. No distractions to sleeping. I wouldn’t have left them whilst little to play alone upstairs, I liked the interaction.

My eldest is 9 and we still have most of the toys downstairs in the living / dining room. We don’t have a separate playroom.

They do have some toys in bedrooms but most of the time they’re played with downstairs. When they were babies / toddlers they were only playing with the toys in the bedroom if they woke early, or if I was upstairs at the same time.

Living room here with a box of favourites upstairs as my house layout is super weird :)

I use the Trofast boxes and storage units from IKEA, they're great. Upstairs we have the KALLAX with storage boxes inside and books on top

DC1 is 3 and we now have a baby DC2 so most of the toys will be downstairs for the foreseeable, we need to be able to keep an eye on them. We are planning an extension with a kitchen/diner/family room and I'm going to create a play corner there so we can keep an eye on them when cooking, clearing up etc. Hopefully that will allow us to keep the separate living room a bit more tidy and "grown up".

We only have books and teddies in DC1's bedroom although I might move some more toys up there now he's big enough to go and get them if he wants to play with them, or go and play in there by himself for a bit.

We still lived in the kitchen when my kids (twins) were that age. Wherever they are, you are going to be at that age IMO, so it might as well be where you are most comfortable/can do other stuff. I read a tip in the book Toddler Taming - get a light garden rake and at the end of the day just rake up the toys and stick them in a toy box, then sweep the floor, and that's all the mess taken care of. We still have a toy box in the living room and the kids are 8 now!