Life feels so mundane and stressful with 2.4 year old

[teaandkittehs]

Hi All,

I love my little lady and actually enjoy doing things with her, but I struggle in the house so I'm always taking her out to soft play, gym, role play centres, the park etc. I engage with her constantly at those places so I don't take her to ignore her and drink coffee. But the days are SO LONG and although she luckily still naps for an hour I find it so hard to fill both the morning and afternoon shifts. She gets her 30 hours free nursery in January, at present she is in nursery 5 hours a week across 2 mornings. I mostly struggle to amuse her at home - I've read plenty of threads where everyone says we are not their 24 hour entertainment machine and to let them amuse themselves, but she gets bored and ends up being destructive i.e. dumping toys out on the floor, drawing on the wall etc, or she gets whingey and I don't blame her as from what I've read they can't properly play alone until 4 or so. I realise there is no way out of this and I've just got to push through until she gets her free nursery (we likely won't use the full 30 hours as we like being able to do stuff with her, but it's just constant at present) but I guess I just need to hear that I'm not alone in this! I actually wake up stressed because I know I've got yet another day to fill. . . . And she deserves better than that! My husband is better than me at amusing her at home but I've noticed he leaves the tv on a lot and let's her wander in and out of the garden and house and she ends up getting bored and whingey if he's not fully engaging with her. She's just so busy and high need at this age. I don't think it's unusual or there is anything wrong with her, I'm just struggling with it though!

Get her to help you with chores ('helping' at this age is defined as not slowing you down so much that you're going backwards) – she can help put washing in the machine, hand pegs to you for pegging out, try to pair socks when you're folding. Similarly with helping with washing up (own bowl of water, thick tea towel under it, apron for her), helping sweep/dust/hoover.

Maybe review her toys – are they right for her stage of development, or some a bit young/old for her just now? How many does she have out at once? Many children play better if there are not too many choices at once, so it might help to put some away for now. That also has the added bonus that on a tricky day, you can bring out a toy she's not seen for a while.

Mine would play semi-independently in the same room as me well before they'd play properly independently. So we'd have a tub of duplo out in the kitchen, they'd be building and I'd be cooking, but we'd be chatting at the same time, and I'd be easily on hand to prise tricky bits apart or help steady the construction while they put a new bit on, etc.

What sort of things would you like to do at home with her? Maybe we can help come up with some ideas that will work for her age but feel more satisfying for you.

Her toys are mostly organised in boxes so she can't see some of them until we get them out. That being said, she's at the bottom end of the pass for communication, and social development, and so isn't great at role play and alumni her cognitive abilities are not high for her age so building for her is largely still one block on top of another although she likes the duplo slide and slides her little people and her sheep down it. But she gets frustrated when she can't click the blocks in place. She likes her train set but can't build the tracks yet and also likes to stand on it etc so limited play from that. She likes scrabbling but it ends up on the walls. Painting lasts about 8 minutes. She basically likes physical play and wants to run, chase or be chased, and be outside or at soft play, but it's not possible to do those things constantly! She's not very bothered about helping with chores, she occasionally gets her brush or Henry hoover but isn't that interested in joining in. She doesn't sit still long for books. Basically the days are easier if she's out of the house! Like i said we have her with us a lot so there is no novelty in home or her toys unlike kids who go to nursery 4 days a week work similar. I do hear about kids who love duplo etc at her age but she just doesn't really know what to do with it. How do you build a bridge if you don't know what one is yet? Or a house? I think her limited vocab (only scrapes an ages and stages pass) is limiting her. It's getting better all the time but not very advanced yet. She's been assessed and no one is worried for her future although they agree she's at the bottom end of the pass for those things, but upper end for physical things.

Sorry, it's taken me a while to get back to this! It's a tricky phase when they've outgrown the baby toys but haven't quite grown into the building and pretend play stuff.

What options do you have for physical play at home? We've got the galt preschooler trampoline – notionally, it's 3+, but both of mine could definitely use it by 2-2.5. One of those pop-up tunnels to crawl through (or a large cardboard box)? DD1 was a toddler in second lockdown, and we had her chasing balls through the tunnel, pushing things through, it etc. A long hallway is also great for all sorts of chasing/running games, if you have one, including 'chase the ball and bring it back to me', i.e., fetch. Jumping games, lots of ideas online. Improvised obstacle course (through the tunnel, over the kitchen chair, jump over these lines, etc.). There are also those indoor climbing triangles, some with various add-ons, although we've never had one.

Similarly, what do you have or could you have in the garden for her? Toddler slides, water tables, and such are often free or cheap on marketplace. The garden is also good for toddler art – paint the fence with water, get the pavement chalks out.

For her toys, could you get some clear boxes or put pictures of the contents on the boxes you have so that she can more easily tell them apart? If she can't quite click the duplo together yet, megablocks or classic wooden blocks might be good? Or go large, and collect shoeboxes and other small cardboard boxes for your own giant block set for this phase, if you have the storage space.

Does she like a bath? We had long, just for fun play baths as an activity at that age. Anything that won't get damaged by the water counts as a bath toy to ring the changes. Obviously you have to be there with her, but we still found it filled a good bit of time, and required less intense interaction from us. Messy play can also be contained in the bath, and then you hose everything down, including her.

Sorry, that's really long! Hopefully there's at least something in there that might suit!

We actually have/do pretty much everything on your list, we had a bit more cash until recently and so I got kitted out with the water play tables, slide, pop up tunnel etc last summer. She uses them all. Her step brother has a big trampoline too so she's got that, we also built her a sandpit. She's very lucky/spoilt in that respect but it means she used to it all. We've got less income now so i am SO glad I invested in those things early! She's got a paddling pool too which can be an indoor ball pit when weather is bad. We've got the giant chalk and she eats it so we have to take it away periodically, we paint but it's only about 8 minutes which is pretty normal attention span for her age i gather.

The only thing we can't really do is change her toy boxes because my husband built nice ones out of wood so it would be a bit controversial but I don't think he had realised that her not being able to go through them easily herself would be an issue - it does mean we have to get toys out to see what she wants to play with and some random things at the bottom get forgotten for a while as a result which can be a good thing. But they are a bit restrictive because heavy etc.

I keep reading about how we are not meant to be her 24 hour entertainment machine, but she gets whingey and clingy if left to her own devices. She's getting too much tv because she's so used to her toys and also most of them and the big play space is in the same room as the tv. . . . I think I'm just exhausted by this intense phase and knowing it could last a couple more years is quite terrifying. . . ! I'm not a natural parent and have to work so hard at it, my husband is much better at it than me. I just take her to soft play, baby gymnastics etc because I find it so hard to amuse her in the house but it's expensive doing things all the time. We are very outdoorsy and spend a lot of time in the woods. I think I'm the problem, I get periodic bouts of serious anxiety when I wake up as I dread having to find ways to amuse her for another day, it is often not as bad as I think it will be but it's still exhausting. I just want to sit and watch a film one afternoon a week, even a kids film would do, but she can't focus on a full one yet so it's a constant wheel of activities often with tv on in the background . . . . . Not great parenting, eh.