Dear people who were parents of toddlers in lockdown

[jallopeno]

How on earth did you manage?!!

I'm so sorry. I don't think I realised how much of a struggle it must have been. Hope you're doing OK.

It was very hard! And dh is a paramedic which you can't even begin to imagine.

You're talking about singular circumstances, not population level issues that affect 'toddlers' or 'teens' in general.

Yup, I had a just turned two year old and a four year old. No garden. Medic husband working all hours (in scary circumstances at the time). My freelance career disappeared (and I’m still trying to claw it back). It was awful and my mental health went seriously downhill (as did my figure, baking fucking cakes for something to do and drinking wine to add SOME excitement to my day). Didn’t help that my parents didn’t seem to get how stressful it was for me and just sent “hilarious” lockdown memes and moaned about running out of box sets to watch 🙄
I also stressed myself out by doing all those activities like putting bloody dinosaur figures in ice for the kids to bash out, and I bought a tuff tray and sand etc. They don’t remember any of it, may as well have stuck them in front of a screen all day 😂
In all seriousness though, I do feel worse for parents of teens in that time. At least mine were too little to have any real understanding.

I had one 18 month old and I can hardly think back to it without my eye twitching.

I have a second child now at a similar age and I actually feel a bit of grief for the time I lost with my older child - I was so stressed and frazzled I couldn't enjoy him, I just wanted to get through the day as fast as possible and he deserved better.

I'm a paramedic, work was an escape. However, I work in a rural area where we had low case numbers for the first 18 months. However Christmas just gone, with COVID and flu combined, was hell on earth, so we copped it on the end.

Haha OP, your post made me chuckle! My lockdown toddler is now at school, and I can tell you I am SO glad I wasn't home schooling (and I'm a teacher!). I do wonder how we managed it when even playgrounds were shut in lockdown one, but we are lucky enough to have a garden (and luckily the weather was good in the first lockdown), so that helped a lot. I'd hate to do it again though (we now have a DD2, who is now a toddler having been born in lockdown two!).

I had a 3 month old and a 3 year old when we first went into lock down. Tbh i didnt mind it, I quite enjoyed having an excuse to be at home all snug with the kids and we did get very creative with activities at home. I do remember becoming mildly panic stricken when everywhere local to me sold out of actimel....

I was a childminder so had a house full of toddlers and my own teenager ..

The first one wasn’t too bad we had lovely weather/ a garden so we did lots of activities … but as the weather dropped it got harder . I sent my teen into work for the third lockdown .

The children missed so much in terms of socialising.. confidence building .. making best friends with random people they met at groups or the park ..

parents met other parents so that support would have been missing .

I was depressed and I hated everyone at my work, especially when I was given a huge load to do

I think it really depends on the parents’ work situation. A toddler at home with at least one parent furloughed or not working is very different to a toddler at home being looked after by someone trying to work FT.

It was a nightmare. Husband and I both had to work and look after 3 and 1 year old, our marriage and mental health barely survived. It was very hard to hear people moaning about how bored they were when we were literally running on adrenaline for months. As others have said, even the playgrounds were closed. Probably the best thing was that the kids were so little they didn’t mind and don’t really remember, and we didn’t have to home school

We had a 3 year old with no garden and no outside space. It was hell on earth and something we never ever want to repeat so moved in the January of 2021 to a place with a garden and the first thing we did is get the garden done with a jungle gym so if it happened again we were ready! We also had a neighbour from hell in the original place who played drum and bass 24/7 for 6 days at one point. That was a massive low point.

Edited to add: we were both also working and that was just a shit show.

We had a 1.5 year old and a 5.5 year old and two full time jobs. It was fucking awful, home schooling daytimes and working nights. Took a long time to recover tbh.

A 2.5yr old and a 3 month old baby. It was not fun! I was so glad though I was on maternity leave. My dh was furloughed for the first few months too. Not sure I'd have coped well if he hadn't been. It was tougher when he went bk for sure. Thankfully by time mat leave ended nursery was reopened. I was very thankful.

I wouldn't say it effected my older child but I'm not so sure about the younger one. She's nearly 4 and a lot of the kids her age at nursery just don't seem as confident and outgoing and def more clingy than their older siblings!

I was homeschooling a 4 year old (so no sending them off to work independently) and had a just walking 11 months old who was grabbing pens and paper constantly. Dh and I were working full time. It was hell. Some people had it worse, we had a garden, but it was an awful time.

I talk to people who were child free on furlough and said they used the time to slow down and learn yoga and I want to poke their eyes out.

Had an older baby and it was awful to be quite honest, also had teenagers and a 4 year old which wasn’t so bad as lots of activities you can do with them, they’ll watch tv etc but a young toddler is only really distracted by seeing real life, being exposed to different senses, going to the shops, mixing with other people etc, never mind evidence that rates of cancer etc end up being higher when not exposed to any bugs in early life. Every one said must be hard for people with newborns but wouldn’t have found that an issue as they mainly just feed and sleep and get enough stimulation watching things around the house

I don’t think it’s comparable between ages.

the OP asked about toddlers. Yes it was tough, but as I’ve said for me, the aftermath was worse. Very rural which I appreciate is unusual but the term exposure since is my breaking point.

on the family farm we also have teens. Lucky they were ok. Ones friend moved in. I did the homework side. They are all good.

others are not. But ours work. Hard on the farm.

my best friends daughter will never recover from being a teen in lockdown. Her anxiety led to chronic anorexia and she was ultimately placed in an adult unit age 13 with no visits allowed.

everyone has a memory. Everyone’s is different.

most of me would go back to the isolation rather than the ridiculous behaviour I see now.

child throwing up in carpark. At school next day. Mother shouting I have to go to work when challenged. Called to collect. Doesn’t bother till end of day. Or can’t. Fair enough.

but now we have entire school down.

I take a school playgroup. We have 15. We had two Thursday.

my eldest has been in school 13 days. Been off four.

it’s crazy.

those with older children, friends I mean, their toddlers seem much tougher. Had a older one coming in pre covid with this stuff.

My DD turned 2 in the first lockdown. I wasn't working and spent most days taking her to toddler classes, so it was a massive change to our routine after lockdown. We were used to getting out every day to some kind of structured activity and social interaction with other toddlers. In the first lockdown, the playgrounds and all classes and attractions were shut so I would take her out every morning for a walk in different open spaces. We live in London and eventually explored every single park and garden square, river path etc within a 3 mile radius. I'd leave the house at 8.30am and return home at 2pm when she was napping.

When they opened up nurseries to non key workers after a few months, I signed her up to a weekly session so she'd have a place to play with other dc. Then she started nursery 3 days at a Montessori nursery so when the winter lockdown came, she was able to attend nursery throughout. We went back to toddler classes as soon as they reopened in the August, sitting on individual mats and spraying dettol on equipment between uses. When they banned indoor classes, we did some outdoor classes during the winter lockdown, wearing coats and ski trousers, singing songs and chasing bubbles into the first cold week of December. During the winter, DH and I would take DD out on trips to different playgrounds and parks every weekend, ticking off a checklist of every large park in London. We didn't want to get stale just going to the same local park every weekend.

So overall I think DD was kept pretty stimulated and in as much social contact as we were able, within the rules. She's about to start Year 1 and has been thriving in school.

I had a 2.5 year old who had just dropped her nap. DH and I both in high pressure jobs (me a key worker although I could work from home and DH although not a key worker does something techy that keeps the internet running or some such when nearly all commerce went online). I'll be honest it was awful and I can't really talk to anyone who had furlough cos I get angry (I'm not saying it was easy for anyone but I do think some people who had furlough should check their privilege a bit). That said, we were financially secure and from talking to colleagues who had older children I was aware it was very hard for kids in exam years etc who were much more aware of what was going on.

I told my employer if they closed the nurseries in that second round I'd be taking unpaid leave, I couldn't go through it again, fortunately it didn't come to that but that was as much for my DDs sake as mine. It wasn't fair to her.

DS is about to turn 5 and it was really hard. However, I had it easier than DH as I was in work in a hospital where he was trying to WFH with our son. DH's boss was understanding as they had kids a bit older who they were trying to home school while WFH, so we were lucky fom that respect. It was still so hard and bloody monotonous!

When lockdown started I'd just been to our first ever baby group, just over 1 year old. We'd been at home, with me wfh since he was 4 months, as his severe reflux and cmpa meant he projectile vomited about 8x per day. He also had feeding aversion so it was a constant trick him into feeding, vomit, sleep, trick into feeding cycle. We'd just gotten it under control at the start of 2020. Once he started being sick in a shop and another customer called an ambulance as he sounded like he couldn't breathe (normal for us, but scary for randoms). That's why I was at home.

I'm still affected and medicated, although healthy (now 19mo) dd has gone a long way in healing things.

I always say I had a year of practice! People didn't understand the panic that my baby would die (starve) until 2020. But we started toddler groups once a week in 2021, and now he starts school next week! No he still doesn't sleep, and bed shares with me because he drinks more than 1l of fortified milk overnight to maintain his weight. But we are happy, healthy and alive. And he's thriving alongside his baby sister!

I am shitting myself however that I'm expected to start travelling again for work in a couple of weeks. I've not travelled post covid 😬

Our own DC were already adults living away so we weren't affected. But a friend of mine used to desperately try to entertain her young grandchildren on Zoom so that the parents could work.

I was very much in the same boat, to say everyone said how awful it must be for keyworkers (and my job did involve being exposed to confirmed covid cases when everyone was terrified of it) but to me it wasn’t half as bad as the hell of being stuck in the house with a very bored toddler, when had to do 2 weeks isolation not being allowed outside for our daily walk that was even worse

I had a 1.5ish year old and a 10 month old.

My mum moved in and THANKFULLY I was on Mat leave. My DH was at home working but had loads of flexibility so we had lots of time together.

We ignored most rules and went shopping to supermarkets etc.

My youngest has speech delays and was hugely hindered by mask wearing. My 5 almost 6 year old has been unscathed.

I was working part-time with a 2yo (DC1) when we went into lockdown. It was awful. My husband's job went crazy and he essentially threw me under the bus by taking over a bedroom as an office at home, locking himself in there and not helping with our DC1. I would schedule meetings and other face-time commitments for during naptime and leave my DC1 crying in their cot until I was finished if DC1 woke up early. The other work I would do during the middle of the night (luckily my work is quite flexible) so I could take DC1 out or play during the day. The lockdown caused a great deal of extra work for us, so my job was busier than usual but at least I wasn't full time. Also, we live near a huge park with woods in it so I'd take DC to play in the woods away from where the police were telling people to move on and generally being very aggressive. Often we'd bump into friends there and have some company.

Tbh longterm I don't think DC1 has been hugely affected. I made as much time for them as I could and they started soon after that at a brilliant nursery. It set back my career hugely as I ended up having to turn down a placement which I'd been hoping to do. And it caused longterm damage to my relationship with my husband which is ongoing to this day.