To really dread weekends?

[frillonit]

Is this normal lol

two little kids (2 and 5) never know what to do with them or how to fill the time. Everywhere is busy and expensive. But if you stay home it’s awful.

Oh god, the tedium of toddlers! At least when they are babies you can go where you want and they’re not bothered.

I’m sure the age gap between yours makes it more difficult too. There was 18 months between mine but I remember (with horror) the period when the older one wanted to be running around outside all the time and the little one was at the crawling stage during a particularly wet and miserable winter so he had to be strapped in a buggy whenever we went out 😩

I think you have to get away from the mindset that they want to do different things all the time - they won’t care if you go to the same park or NT property every week.

I had an annual membership for Twycross Zoo which was nearby, and which was only slightly more expensive than a day ticket - I think there were days when we were the only visitors.

National Trust is ideal I think. Lots of space to run around, usually a playground, there’s a cafe to get something to eat or you can take a picnic. Should take up a fair bit of time.

Or anything outdoors really. If you can get friends to join you sometimes that helps.

I remember that feeling from when mine were young. The upside is no Sunday night dread! When that started to come back, I knew the hardest years of parenting were behind me (and yes I’ve been through the teen years with eldest!)

Thing is if you remember it you were probably older than 2. Even for older children they won’t watch tv all day. They have swimming first thing and then have to fill the read of the day.

The only way I can drink my morning cup of tea is if I also make breakfast for DD and let her sit on the sofa and watch TV while I drink it, which goes against various guidelines 😂.

Stuff the guidelines, stick the telly on and have a brew in peace, stop being a martyr.

Mine used to love a charity shop - £1 each, they get books, toys etc. Supermarket for a cup of tea. There thats another hour gone.

Church on a Sunday morning - family friendly service, thats a morning gone.

At that age (although about 20 years ago now for me):
Park - a lot of this but we’d try different ones
Meet friends (go to theirs or they come to ours if weather bad)
By 3 they were at school nursery so getting party invites which took up weekend time
Seeing family
Outings to zoos etc
Soft play if totally desperate

Obviously there was TV time, playing at home etc.

I’m not in the uk. And we don’t have that many ‘child’ activities locally.

My 5 year old spends his time a lot just joining whatever we adults are doing, combined with meeting local kids or playing outside . stuff like soft play is hours away so isn’t really normal
weekend.

He was off nursery the last 2 days due to public holidays. Yesterday he played football with local friends, then we went to supermarket and butchers ( no online delivery available here). Spent afternoon at home pottering around, as it was raining by that point.

Today we took a trip to local recycling centre to dump garden waste and collect compost. He had fun piling compost into buckets. Did a bit of gardening when home. He’s now watching a film as it’s raining again and we made some pizza dough for dinner.
At 2 years it was fairly similar

Can you try and just do more practical things you need to get done or want to do, and just involve them? A trip to farm is nice, but surely it’s busy to do every single weekend?
Invite friends with kids over also in summer

Yeah I 100% felt like this when mine were that age - lockdown when they were 4.5 and 16 months really didn’t help because then I dreaded weekdays too.

If you can afford the initial outlay, annual membership to your local zoo or wildlife park usually costs the same as a couple of visits and means you can pop in for a morning or afternoon or even just to have a picnic rather than feeling like you have to stay the whole day to get your money's worth

If it's nice weather a trip to the woods or river is always nice- more adventurous and less busy than the park

Have you got a garden? How comes staying at home is so bad?
if you’ve got the space it might be worth buying a few things and putting them on rotate.
I used to dread expensive days out, parking, queues, lunch, gift shops, weather and all that!

Junior parkrun on a Sunday has saved my sanity on more occasions than I can count. I take an insulated cup of coffee and some cheese and crackers, and we run / walk the route together then I sit on a bench and drink my coffee while she runs off and makes friends with other kids on the park. It takes up a good few hours and by the time we're home I don't care if there's a load of tv time because she's had such a nice active morning.

Yep, all of us with older kids have been there once upon a time! We’re also in Derbyshire and found a NT membership to be a godsend. Yes you have to pack bags/take snacks/suncream etc but that’s part of what you sign up for when you have kids! Mine were 5, 3 and 1 during lockdown so basically we just got used to amusing ourselves at home… baking, painting, water table and sand pit outside etc. We’d have killed to have broken it up with a trip to a playground 😂.

I remember those unrelenting days.

We sprang for membership of zoo and aquarium and local childrens museum. Saturday we would usually have swim lessons and then go for pizza. Sat afternoon we'd take it in turns to do something on our own - the other one would take the kids to the park/painting/baking/library whatever.

But what saved us was we were friends with a couple with kids a similar age. Every Sunday morning one of us would call the other and we'd meet up to go to the beach (even in winter), zoo, park, farm anywhere. We always brought food including something decent and a flask of coffee for the parents and had a picnic. Having other adults to talk to was brilliant. I actually have fond memories of those days.

I think it’s possible to do that with one child. Especially one over 5, @Caspianberg . I don’t think that would work with two and especially not with a 2yo.

I tend to find friends have weekends as family time, don’t really tend to see them much at the weekend.

I love the weekends, I actually preferred it when they were this age as they actually wanted to do things with me now they are teens they never want to go anywhere so now I do dread them

@frillonit - it’s exactly what we did with Ds when he was 2 also.

I think most people we know locally do also with various age children. Children slot into normal life with odd bit of child fun like trip to park or swim one morning, but not full all day child entertainment. like you say, it’s exhausting and expensive

Ok but I’m not totally sure what normal life would look like to be honest. Left to my own devices I would probably just potter around. As it is, I can’t really do that with such young children.

We definitely wouldn’t worry if a two year old watched twenty mins of tv while you have a coffee, I think it is when they are watching tv/ipads/phones for hours it is a problem, so maybe give yourself a break there.
the rest of the day is definitely harder to fill and I remember feeling tired all the time at that stage!

I was broke when DD was growing up so we usually took a lot of walks, went to the local library and always checked out what free cultural events were going on locally. Cinema as well as a treat but we used to take out own drinks and sweets.

At home we’d do cinema evenings, games, drawing etc.

There are tons of NT places in Derbyshire/East Midlands, so with a membership you're laughing. Most of them offer kids' things like playgrounds and activities. Take a picnic and it's a reasonably cheap day out (or even a half-day is lots of time filled!)

I’m going to sound really awkward now, but picnics are a no go. 2 year old just won’t eat them.

I am aware of Kedelston hall (not much there) and Calle Abbey (small playground.) Foremark is OK but not much beyond the play area. Sudbury is good but we’ve been a lot.

Are you a single parent?
I enjoy the weekend less when my partner has an 18 hole round of golf booked in, as I find it much harder to entertain on my own!
When we are both around and can tag team
its much easier - we usually visit grandparents at some point over the weekend so that takes up a few hours!

Calke Abbey for example is more than just a playground though? There’s Calke Explore, a decent long walk etc. We always managed to spend a few hours there (I had 3 under 5).

I don’t think a long walk would engage the toddler unfortunately!