Those with a 2-3 year old at home ..

[iwantitalltobenormal]

What kinds of things are you filling your time with? I’m seriously running out of activities and things to do to fill our day, I have little resource , just lots of toys that he seems to be bored with now

A fuck load of TV.

I can't be bothered with arts, crafts, activities, getting mess fucking everywhere anymore.

Bucket of water and a decorating paintbrush, letting her "paint" the fence in the garden. Pavement chalk for the gardens. Asked her to pick all the daisies from the grass (I was running out of ideas by this point but she liked it). We go out for walks and look for birds and squirrels. Tried hide and seek but she just stands still and shuts her eyes! Not sure she understands the concept just yet 😆

We have these massive boxes. Not kidding. It entertains them all day! It's a fort. It's somewhere to watch tv. It's a maze which they crawl through the flaps. It's a colouring board. It's a place for their teddies and babies.

It's fab!

My nearly 3 year old LOVES marbles - seriously keeps him occupied for ages. He has a mini marble run but also likes making his own with bits he finds in the garden.

You can buy a tub of marbles off amazon quite cheaply - he likes the ones with lots of different sizes and colours (House of Marbles I think they're called)

Obviously you need to watch they don't put them in their mouth and might not be a good idea if they have younger siblings, but a relatively cheap way to keep them occupied for a bit.

Bookmarking for ideas. DS is 3 and I'm 22 weeks with DC2. He's driving me insane at the moment. He's generally a good kid but lockdown is getting to him and I don't have the energy to put up with his playing up any more. Any activities to keep him quiet and tired out would be great!

Bubbles in the garden, scooter round the block, sticker books and colouring, baking (not every day- I’m eating it all), puzzles, painting outside, oh and some writing practise- nursery gave us some tracing the dots to do.
I tried online work outs- didn’t enjoy!
And lots of cbeebies

DD (3 next week):

Hiding Duplo bricks around the house and garden for the other person to find (she does the hiding on alternate goes).

Loads of drawing

I've bought her a toddler colouring activity book with shapes and numbers which we'll start on a rainy day.

Looking at old photo albums of when I was her age.

Orchard Farm games like the Shopping List game

Guess Who game is great at this age though she still needs a bit of guidance. It takes a good five minutes for her to flip all the pictures upright before we start playing.

Jigsaw puzzles

I've made a computer out of an A4 hardback sketchpad so it opens like a laptop. She taps away on the bottom bit then draws what she's typing on the upright bit that's the 'screen' (this is my attempt to get her to let me do my work!)

She has been really enjoying 'helping' with things like emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming, laying the table.

She has also got into doing the deadheading in the garden and putting the dead flower heads in a bucket which takes ages.

I love the sensory bin ideas, never heard of them before, eek. Plus I have a load of baby pasta to use up.

@hoggleludo where are they from?

kinetic sand is good for less mess

Lots of tv here too. Duplo, messy play, baking, Cosmic yoga. Every day we try and do some whole body movement, some fine motor skills and read stories.

@MindyStClaire it sucks! I'm on medication for sickness but it makes me so tired so I'm cautious of taking it when it's just me and DS. I was such a great mum before lockdown, when we went to his clubs and was out and about a lot. However, i feel like I'm lacking so much motivation and routine at the minute, I'm struggling.
I'm off sick from work at the minute due to the sickness and feel so anxious about returning and working from home with DS.

We've got a 3 week old baby and an (almost) 3 year old, so lots of TV if I'm honest!!

-We've also got the bouncy castle set up.
-Trampoline
-Hose pipe in the garden and let her soak everything.
-painting
-Making cards
-playing put the teddies to bed
-baking

That's about it!

DD is 2.5 and I'm struggling now. Things we have done include making and painting salt dough shapes, collage pictures, playdough, baking, helping with jobs, lots of water play in the garden, blowing up a few leftover balloons from a birthday, bubbles, freezing flowers and food colour in ice cubes to play with, washing toys, painting the path with water, using chalk, playing with toys and lots of TV!

I'm struggling but have found Pinterest so helpful. Fake snow when down well (bicarbonate of soda and flour) - they put their plastic animals in there. 3 year old loves doing line and letter tracing. Painting outside (helps on sunny days if I can chuck them in the paddling pool to clean up!). Glowsticks in the bath. 3 year old loves a treasure hunt.

Lol @mayoral I'm literally one activity away from saying this too. We've done a lot of Paw Patrol this morning as DH is on some "important calls" and I really can't be arsed to do something creative whilst monitoring grizzly DS who's just had his 8 week jabs.

Where is a good place to buy the containers for a sensory box?

Sandpit
Trampoline
You Tube (dance classes and yoga)
Bathing her dollies
Baking & cooking
Painting
Play'doh
Our live stream kids martial arts classes
Chalk drawing on the outside walls
Lots of Disney+
She loves 'helping' do the dishes etc.
Puzzles puzzles and more puzzles

Running out of ideas though so loving this thread for more.

DD has just turned 2 and we're quite lucky as she's quite happy playing with her usual toys. The days pass quickly as we have a 2.5 hour walk every morning, then she has lunch and a 2 hour nap. She takes up to an hour to eat each meal, so there's not much time left to fill after that! We don't have a garden so that rules out some messier play ideas, but she likes dancing to online videos, following some live music classes, and art/craft activities. We have a couple of toddler classes which have switched to online delivery and she still enjoys those (but there are also lots of classes on FB/Youtube which are freely accessible). Tried baking a couple of times, but we have an open plan kitchen/living area and she ends up wandering between the kitchen and sofa with a fistful of flour. We've just got a Pikler triangle to make up for not being able to go to playgrounds, which she loves climbing, but it takes up loads of space. Sometimes we'll also get out the DIY stepladder and let her climb up and down that too. We live in a flat without any stairs, but we often go out to the communal stairs and let her walk up and down them (small block so we don't see anyone else). But a lot of the time she just toddles around with her toys, pulling out books for me to read, and pulling out any interesting items she can find.

Mine mostly watches crap on YouTube while I try to homeschool my older one and work from home. Several times a day I chuck them both outside to dig in mud. They snack a lot. That about sums it up.

Just popping back onto this thread to say I've discovered the imagination tree website and found it really good for ideas. Yesterday for example, I filled a plastic tray with shaving foam for "snow", put a foil "ice rink" in, and stuck a couple of Happyland people and diggers in it. Today I put some objects in a tray (screws, nails, small plastic toys, wooden blocks) and then got a couple of magnets off the fridge so they could explore what would stick. I've got a few more ideas along these lines from that website that should be super quick to set up.