4 year old only wants to play trains

[WirlyTwoo]

My son just turned 4 and for his birthday he had lots of new toys: Lego, puzzles, a sandpit, craft activities etc. I thought this would be great as I was starting to feel like we’d played with all his old toys over and over since lockdown started. However, over the last few weeks he just wants to play with his train set and little else. I wouldn’t mind except he won’t play by himself and insists I play with him which involves pushing the trains round and round endlessly. I’ve tried making this more interesting by encouraging him to come up with little stories about the trains but he much prefers just pushing then round and round. I find this really boring and frustrating as he has lots of toys and I don’t feel we’re doing anything that developmental. I try to encourage him to do crafts, writing, etc but with little interest. We go out for a walk and play in the garden most days too.

I suspect he’s a bit bored of being home all the time (he would normally be at nursery) and unsettled by the current situation and a new baby brother but I’m finding the days so tedious that I feel like I’m getting quite grumpy with him.

Is this normal? Any tips to encourage more interest in things or for him to play by himself more?

My son is train obsessed (to be fair, he is ASD so the obsession may be triggered by different things to your son.) However, he won't focus on Lego, games etc so any play we do has to be linked to trains. I've tried to find out specifically what he enjoys about trains and then find things that extend on this. My DS loves modern passenger trains so I used blocks to build a platform for passengers to wait for the train. We look at train maps and YouTube videos to learn different stations and then make station signs for them. We have read storybooks about trains and recreate the plot using his trains. We also made rudimentary train signals from cardboard. (All this has taken a period of about a year.)

Don't get me wrong - it's boring as bollocks, but it is extending his play and understanding of the world.

The books 'Train Is On Track' 'Topsy and Tim go on a Train' and 'Terrific Trains' might be of interest....

I think obsessions are pretty much par for the course at his age? My DD is going to be 4 in September and plays with her dinosaurs every day (which is a shame, as she has a lovely train set and I wish she’d play with it!). She also often wants me to play with her. I think this is a good age for cooperative play, so they want a playmate to bounce ideas off, and in the absence of another 4 year old, he wants you to be that playmate.

I also think it’s quite natural to be jealous of your attention and want to reassure himself of his importance to you by trying to monopolise your attention. Have you tried using timers? It’s not exactly the same, but if I need to get something finished (cooking/work), then I put on an egg timer and I promise to come as soon as it goes off. I also put a limit on okay that way - I’ll play till the egg timer goes off. If you’ve got him started, maybe he’ll carry on after you stop playing?

Seconding PP in the idea of using trains to split off into other topics/interests. Will he let other toys ride on the trains? If you draw a train outline, will he add people or colour it in? There are tonnes of books about trains as there are lots of train obsessed kids!

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve just bought some sand timers and that seems to be helping. I had to take the train up to hoover and we’ve not got it out again for a few days and that seems to be helping!