To wonder if anyone else struggles to know what to do with their child in the house?

[Notreallylookingforadvice]

As the username suggests I’m not exactly looking for advice on this but I really struggle, always have. Ds is now 3 and I don’t know how to play with him at all. Whenever he’s in the house the TV is inevitably on for him.

We do loads of things at home, DD prefers home to out when it is cold.

Aquabeads
Kinetic Sand
Playdoh
Air clay
Jigsaws
Board games
Colouring

Sticking
Painting

Role play toys are DD’s favourite- we have her kitchen, shop, babies, vets set, ice cream stall, doctors and dress up outfits of a million types

Why are all the toys broken? It’s just been Christmas.

@TheBirdintheCave i am very neat and clean and house is always organised and clean at the end of the day but how you describe playing with your son is so so controlled and sounds way too restrictive tbh . I think it’s so good for kids to let loose obviously within reason . I got my kids to do a big mural out the back by literally throwing and flicking paint on a big piece of mdf, they were completely crazy and were so so happy . In the end we got a Jackson pollock type piece of art which I absolutely love to this day . Great memories. They never drew on walls etc but I let them stick stickers on their beds and on the rooms as they liked to have some control and influence on their own spaces . Now it’s all cleaned off , freshly painted as they are older .

In terms of activities, I found structure helped. We used to do an outside activity in the morning (play group, the park, shopping etc) home for lunch and then an indoor activity in the afternoon (play doh, painting, baking etc.)

In terms of mess, we have separate boxes for everything, a box of play doh stuff, a box of car stuff, a box of play food etc. That way I find it easier to get one or two things out at a time and it's easier for them to help tidy up as well, they just put everything back in the box.

Using toys is not mess. That’s crackers.

But DD has to tidy up each toy before she gets a new one out. Tidy up song goes on and off she goes.
I’m not bothered by mess but we have a small cottage so it has to be kept orderly.

At that age their attention span is about 15 mins per activity. DD is actually occupied longer by her favourite things but I know she is quite unusual in that she can do longer (nursery have commented on this). So your expectations are probably off @Notreallylookingforadvice you will be needing to cycle through many different toys and activities in a day and that will require tidying!

If you are stuck for ideas - strong recommend for 5minutemum on instagram https://www.instagram.com/fiveminutemum/
Play ideas with a very light learning edge. Quick and easy to do

You sound very underconfident OP, are you sure it's not depression or something?

You're underestimating your child's ability to learn. Ok, you get out crayons. Watch your child. If he goes to draw on something he shouldn't, stop him. If he does it anyway when you're not looking, apply an appropriate consequence like saying you have to put crayons away now, get him to wipe up the wall etc (even if it's not really cleaning it).

The same with playdoh, I have a big oilcloth I put out on the floor, kids are trained not to take playdoh off that, I make them help clean up after so they learn making a mess is a pain for them as well. You could start out with a small amount of playdoh if that helps.

When lockdowns started, DD was 3.5 and DS was 9 months - remember when you could only go out 30 mins a day? Nearly killed me but I became much more resourceful. Eg spray bottle with water and a cloth - kid cleans water or fridge etc, wipe up water after, keeps them happy for ages. Daytime shower then let them squeegee the shower. Get a cardboard box and draw on it to make it a car they sit in, or cut holes for doors and windows and make it a dolls house. Etc etc. There are loads of books and websites with ideas for kids indoors.

We started out having the TV on loads in lockdowns but it's not great for them and means they get hyper as not using enough energy - we now have pre-set times when they watch to ensure they don't nag for TV all the time. I used to make myself an actual schedule when I was home in lockdown, eg breakfast, dressed, 30 mins TV, activity 1, go to the park, home for lunch, activity 2 etc.

Why are your toys all trashed? You either need to buy better toys or teach your kid to be more careful with them. And get rid of the broken ones. At that age we had a big box of mega blocks, not very messy. Or magformers are great as they're magnetic so easy to pick them all up!

Books are very good for kids - get fresh ones from library regularly. Flap books are good for that age. You can spin it out and read one then act it out, draw pictures of characters, etc. We used to read we're going on a bear hunt then you can act it out with toys and make the grass and water etc.

Kids are messy because they're creative, they can learn to minimise the mess but if you never let them get into things, you'll restrict their learning. I think you need to relax into it a bit more and find things to do that you both enjoy. Ideally you both get into a flow state and become absorbed by what you're doing.

You seem reluctant to play at home because of the mess, which I don't relate to because a bit of mess at home is normal, not a big deal and worth it for children to have some high quality play. Just embrace it. If it's properly messy like art or playdoh, do it together at a table rather than independent play. If it's just toys knocking around it's really not a big deal, encourage child to help tidy up. My 3 year old leads play and tells me what to do, it gets exhausting after a while but is fun in smaller doses and she's learning to be more independent with it. Maybe your child is not quite old enough to understand how to get the most out of the toys with small parts, perhaps put them away for a while or play with them together rather than independently. Doctor kit sounds great! For us, teddies are great props for role play and are not hard to tidy up e.g. play nursery/school/doctors. I sympathise though, a cold dark rainy day in winter can feel long and daughter is climbing the walls by the end of it no matter how good the play.

I feel the same way. We do toy rotation and toys very accessible for him to play by himself which helps. I'll help set up train tracks and that's about my limit. But I do not enjoy playing at all. We spend as much time outside as possible and at home I'll do things like play dough and baking.

I'm sure as he gets older I'll enjoy doing more things like crafts, puzzles, board games etc.

So I kind of think of house activities in four groups:

1. Things I hate (board games) hard no. Play them with Daddy or Nanna
2. Things I (and the kids!)like (Brio, reading, cooking). Do these regularly 3)Things they can mostly do without me (Playdoh while I clean the kitchen) Do these regularly too

Fourth group is things I'm kinda meh on, but they like (dolls house play) These I find much easier to sum up the energy for a bit here and there if I'm mostly doing 2 and 3, and not silently raging from doing 1. And Daddy/Nanna/uncle Bob/whoever gets a "special thing" to do as their bonding activity. Win-win

Getting started is the hardest part. Good luck

If you're in for the whole day (which is hard to fill!) maybe make yourself and him a timetable.
Take photos of his toys, get him involved, print them out and laminate.
Make a book. Keep the construction together, keep small world together (little people, figures, messy play that kills a lot of time etc

Get him to choose three things that he wants to do. You can combine, little people by the trains, a zoo next to the trains, diggers in flour etc.

When he's finished, help him put his things away and then he chooses what he wants next.

Hopefully should help him play independently and more immersively.

Just read your posts on mess and breaking stuff.

Toy rotation.
Look at the storage you've got and he only gets that amount of stuff to play with. So one set of control, one role play-doctors, one set of dovgers, one set of people.

Each gets its own storage, with one of those photos on.

When he's finished, get him to tell you and you model returning it to its box and shelf. That way it's all there for him to enjoy next time.

The rest sort and put away in the garage. In a week/or two swap in some new stuff.

Pack them up in the car and take them to the tip.

Then get on Facebook (or go to smyths if you're flush) and buy new toys that are fully working and go and collect them all, play with those. Train sets/hot wheels/dinosaur/farm animals work well for boys. Bit of fake grass and me and my son play farms for a while sometimes. Indoor climbing is good I.e pikler triangle etc. Orchard games are great. You can get them all cheap on Facebook. Toddler groups are also a godsend for the weekdays term time! You're not a bad mum, you're doing what we all do. But broken toys all around are not helping.

You need to set up a toy rotation system. So all of his toys are stored away in a dedicated cupboard and he doesn't get access to them.

Then in the place where you spend the majority of your indoor time as a family, you can set up simple child friendly stations. For us it's in the living room. All of his toys are in a cupboard in our bedroom and we rotate toys into a low ikea Kallax unit in the living room. His own bedroom has no toys, only bed and bookshelf and a basket of teddies.

We have a small home and still make this work. Every fortnight roughly I'll put new toys out in the Kallax unit. Bottom row is all baskets which can be filled with Duplo blocks or soft teddies or magnetic tiles. Top row might have simple puzzles, little box full of sensory toys, small basket of cars etc etc.

He also has a flisat table. Google these as you can do all sorts of set ups with them that are not messy. Sometimes he has paper from our shredder in it as "hay" and all his farm animals and toy tractors. If we need to pull out the big guns I'll occasionally put sand or water in it with shells we've collected at the beach and he'll happily scoop and pour and tip for up to an hour. Yes there's mess after but I just wipe it up or hoover it up. We don't get it out often so it's always a big hit when we do.

For boys I also recommend a toy called speed track. It's a car track you can roll up and works great with little die cast cars like matchbox cars. Hours of fun and not messy.

Oh don't worry he spends all day at nursery so gets to make as much mess as he pleases there 😂Beyond the house we go for plenty of nature walks where he gets to play in leaves and mud etc. He also has a sand/water table, paddling pool and sprinkler for playing in the garden in the summer.

I'm autistic so for me it's either I find ways of playing with my son that I can cope with (like the scenarios I've described) or I don't play with him. Mess is just not something I can deal with. I have no issue with books, blocks, dens etc being out during the day as I can tidy those away at night and they won't mark my carpet or walls. The only restrictions are to the messy things.

You've mentioned loads about mess- do you have any diagnosis like OCD for example? You said about his doctors set with lots of bits etc - make tidying up part of play!! We play with something then do 'tidy up time' then move onto something new. Make that the routine. We always have cbeebies on in the background- kids watch a bit then play, then we go out, then a bit of TV then play again. Why are you so worried about it? TV is not the devil ipads are.

It sounds like a combination of things are stopping you, OP?

Mess in general, ratio of reward to effort (set-up & clear-up time vs time he’s interested in the activity), and wanting solo play not play that involves you - does that sound a bit like it?

I think this is one of those ‘you can only choose 2 out of 3’ sorts of dilemmas. Nothing’s perfect!

e.g. crayons he won’t be colouring on the wall if you’re colouring alongside him, on a box or a big sheet of paper (trace round his body and your body, colour in) or whatever. It’s not hard to set up, is easy mess to clear up, and will keep him engaged for 20 mins to half an hour. But it requires your time and attention.

Whereas he might play for 20 mins alone with play dough whilst you’re cooking, but you’ll have to enforce an ‘only at the table’ rule and it’s potentially a bit messier to tidy up.

I think the key is managing your own expectations - 3 year olds don’t do one activity for ages (that’s why EYFS usually has free-flow play and learning around different ‘stations’), play is messy and the stage of small children is not particularly conducive to a very tidy house, and sometimes you’ll have to spend a lot of time doing things.

I personally loved the sofa fort stage and would always be up for building one, so can’t relate entirely on that! But I also tell everyone that my own way of surviving early years motherhood with 2 under 2 was ‘Go Outside’ so I’m with you on that one!

Yes I've struggled with this. You haven't asked for advice, just solidarity. Which I can offer! I don't like mess and inwardly groan when the paint and playdoh come out for 10 mins, with 20 mins tidy up. I can also say what helped me through. Buying Duplo and Playmobil sets cheap off eBay, entertained them for long stretches of time while I could just sit on the floor and vaguely move pieces around. No brain power needed! Have nice big storage boxes that make tidy up into a game for the child. Also water magic is great for a low-mess creative activity. Sticker books irritate me because the stickers get everywhere!! But water magic is genius.

I also find the mess really stressful - sometimes I wonder if I am a bit uptight about these things, but my daughter is now 5 and I'm starting to find it easier.

I think when they are young, they need a lot more supervision and you need to consistently teach them things like - only draw on the paper, don't throw playdough around, roll up your sleeves so you don't get paint on them, and put all the items relating to this back in its box when you are done. I also try to not have all toys/things easily accessible, particularly those that are really messy. And then when she starts doing something different I will still remind her about clearing up the previous thing (and then end up doing it myself).

Some children I think are just more inclined to draw on walls etc than others, so maybe I'm just lucky, but I do think consistent teaching of the "rules" is necessary to try and maintain some order!

How about (sorry, advice!) putting something active on the TV? E.g. Cosmic Kids yoga. My DC also enjoyed Boogie Beebies. I used to put them on when it was really too wet or cold to get outdoors for long.

I think they're both still on YouTube. It might lessen the TV guilt a bit.

OP if even throwing cushions around is a mess in your eyes than I think there’s something else at play. It is messy but takes 3 seconds to throw back on the sofa and children aren’t tidy people so something that takes 3 seconds is perfect.

how is your mental health? You don’t have to answer me here.
when I wasn’t doing great in the mind department everything seemed overwhelming or just not worth the effort. I’m doing better now and it’s changed how I see things in terms of their effort worth

Why “for boys”??? 😵‍💫 are we still doing toys for boys and toys for girls in 2024???

I get where you are coming from. Its exhausting but a relatively short phase.

Mine was a very very energetic child, and attention spans were too short to stay doing the same thing for long. Once he was finished with one thing, he quickly moved on to the next. Part of the problem was getting enough free time to set up the toys/games; They loved Lego which drove me insane. Things I found helpful were.

Garden...
A sand pit or sand and water table with a mesh bag to put all the bits in at the end. Make it part of the game.
Painting with water.
Chalks on pavement.
Planting some flower pots and watering.

Indoors.
Big boxes for hiding in or making forts ( can fold flat afterwards)
Designated toy area.
Some sets of draws. Labels on everything. so drawer one Playdough, Two action figures, 3 drawing stuff.
A set of those cheap plastic takeaways with lids from the supermarket(or small cardboard boxes) each with a label or picture on them.... for the small bits. Google lego storage cos I haven't found the solution for that one yet.
A reading book stand or book case - don't put too much on it. Make a feature of choosing and then putting it back. make choosing it the game.
Music playing.
The picking up game... 10 minutes to find as much lego as you can.
Rotate toys and put some away and don't have too many out at once.
Early learning centre for ideas
Cooking, but often its easier to have the cakes ready and they just decorate them.
Magnetic alphabets. Or matching games.

Mostly we tried to get out and about at least once a day, less mess at home that way. Swimming lessons were good and always meant a nice nap afterwards. A change of scene usually solved most problems. Its a relatively short phase. Best of luck.

How about setting up little games like having a selection of items on a tray show it then cover with tea towel and see how much can remember or remove an item and see if they can remember what's missing? Quick easy no mess and engaging.

OP this is extremely relatable to me. I am not neurotypical and I can't help but see that as a factor.

When we watch TV I try and make it something we can both watch and discuss together. Things like Cocomelon are banned - I focus on stuff with a decent narrative arc requiring concentration and understanding that aren't just mindless stimulation of colours and sounds.

Secondly, I pick toys I actually like which align with my interests or possibly my own nostalgia. That's the only way I can cope.

Train sets/hot wheels/dinosaur/farm animals work well for boys

wtf???