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Preschooler bored with toys and less independent play

2 replies

Sandandwater233 · Yesterday 08:13

This is my daughter does it sound familiar . My nearly 3.5 year old ( 4 in march ) is confident, intelligent, polite, has an excellent vocabulary. Goodish at independent playing if she is with me but her dad all the time when he is around
She follows 4 step instructions, never has meltdowns and tantrums are once a month and over in 3 minutes , organised and excellent memory and also cautious about new environments . We take her to a restaurant and sits for an hour whilst I play with her .No issues with changes of routine but she gets bored at times and doesn’t know what she wants to play with , she is also very eager to help all the time with chores .. waits in her bed to be picked up for 1 hour playing with teddies . No impulsivity or hyperactivity neither verbal nor physical ( although she is a chatterbox with lots of whys questions ) and always holds hand in public a behaves beautifully . She loves playing with her peers and very flexible when they changed the rules or when they get up and do something else and at school she is always eager to partake in activities , does circle time and reading time ..
Recently she is becoming increasingly bored with her toys and doesn’t seem to enjoy independent playing as much even if we buy her toys from charity shop daily . Still uses “she “ as a pronoun for both boys and girls but uses all the other pronouns correctly

Any similar kids to mine

OP posts:
ExplodingSmittens · Today 07:13

Why are you buying her a toy everyday?

I would pare right back. Leave a maximum of 5 toys out and available for her to play with. DC play much better with toys when they have less choice. You can always swap over a couple of the toys in the afternoon but a new toy each day seems ridiculous, especially if you’re complaining that she won’t settle to play with them.

If you are home today I’d give her some toys and a tub of soapy water and let her wash her toys then put them on a towel to dry in the sun.

Hathead18 · Today 09:51

My son is the same age and plays independently pretty well. He gets around half an hour ‘quiet time’ after lunch each day in his room where I set up some cars / diggers to play with. No other toys, but he does have books and sometimes his tonie box. Most days he will happily play in his room. I think having just those same few toys to play with gives him the chance to actually play with them rather than jumping between toys.
When he’s downstairs where all the other toys are he tends to jump from toy to toy and seems to get bored of them more easily.
If we had anywhere to store the toys then I would put some away and have less out to play with which I think would help him play more independently with them (but we have a baby who needs access to his own toys and literally nowhere else to store toys, so everything has to be in the living room).
I know some of the best toys we have are the open ended play ones - magnetic tiles, coloured blocks. Stuff where there’s multiple ways you can play with the toys.
Maybe you should see if you can give her time with limited amount of toys and see if she’ll be more willing to play with them?

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