Finding playing with 3 year old v boring. Can you help me come up with some ideas to amuse her which don't invole too much mess, aren't dull and can be done with a newborn attached to me

[Bumperlicious]

DD is 3 and also have dd2 who is 6 weeks and refuses to be put down. DD1 is mostly pretty independent and plays beautifully on her own, but her behaviour (which has been a beit crap since DD2 came along) significantly improves when she has a bit of attention and playing.

The problem is I find pre school playing so dull, I'm not great at reading allowed and don't want/can't make too much mess with crafty stuff. I'm absolutely knackered and drained from the baby too which doesn't help my parenting abilities or my patience.

Can anyone help me find the holy grail - activities to amuse a 3 year old and make her feel attended too without too much effort on my part and without making too much mess, that can be conducted with a baby strapped to me?

I know this sounds horrible, I love DD1, she is great but I just find this age hard work and difficult to juggle with a newborn.

How about letting her wash up? Standing next to the sink having a play with the water. Either strip her down to her pants to do it or put an apron on her.

Folding socks together.
Pritt stick (or tesco equivalent) scissors, paper and a magazine are great.
Old envelopes to make cards and send pretend letters.
How about looking at the cbeebies website ?

Those things made the long days good for us. And regardless of the weather we always went for a walk, free and burnt off some energy!

Letters are a great idea, keep meaning to do that and send them to grandma & nanna, they'll lap up that crap delight! the we can walk to the post box.

Right so for this craft box i need to get plastacine, envelopes, stamps. think we have pritt stick & scissors & paper. anything else?

dh works at the library so we go there a LOT

Thanks for the support. just feeling a bit down at the moment. not enjoying things which is pretty demoralising.

it's hard with a limpet baby too. not getting any time to myself to decompress.

I did find the best thing at this stage is play groups and one o'clock clubs-w here the older one can tear around and I can sit with the baby in a corner. Are there any groups like that around you? yes to craft box - ds loves those double sided sticky pads - much easier to use than sellotape.

bumper, not many ideas, but lots of sympathy. I was getting us all ready to go out earlier when ds1 had to point out to me that it was raining . This has been a long day and I'm counting hours till dp gets home.

ds is currently bringing his toys up in turn to show "his babies". And sometimes the we (babies and me) go watch ds have a bath - that can take a long time, especially if I let him have a bit more leeway with splashing than usual.

Agree with the scissors, glue and magazine. We use old birthday cards too, bit of string,pasta and lots of crayons and felt tip pens. ds1 (3) can while away at least an hour happily.

I also got him a sand table which I keep just outside the back door, he can spend a long time digging, filling up buckets with water etc. while I feed the baby in the kitchen.

"Cooking" - I get ds to help me chop mushrooms, bananas, grate cheese etc so he helps me make lunch and tea.

Also agree with cbeebies, youtube and getting out as much as possible. I try to get out every day, past few weeks while its been dry we have done lots of long walks with double buggy, or ds on his scooter beside me.

hth

gosh, you need more sympathy than me mamachris, you need a large g&t medal!

Oh i have an idea to add to my own thread. liquorice laces & cheerios to make edible necklaces. i got that from a website.

Oh no Bumper, I'm lucky to have a dp who works part time. Maybe that's why I'm so crap at doing 3 at once!

Stickers. Crafty but not too messy. My 3 year old dd loves sticker books of all types and my dh got her a uber cheap book stickers from Tesco that she pretends are stamps and sticks all over envelopes that we can either post or not. We have all our craft stuff in one place which helps.

if you have or can make a little space in living room: let dd build an obstacle course, we used the tubes from wrapping paper put on some books or any other things you can find, after building it, dd can practice and give a show.

island hopping - put a few cushions on floor and dd has to hop from one to the next without falling in the sea

if you don't feel like reading, then story CDs, Thomas the Tank Engine was very popular in our house (good for listening skills and they can do their own things whilst listening, such as making jigsaw puzzles)

drawing - not just colouring in but let dd draw things she sees around her or is interested in

tea party with dolls/soft toys

making a hut from the table by putting a sheet over it, and then having tea party there.

Not sure if these are any help, but these were the things my dd loved to do.

Can I just say if you find mess a bit, er, difficult - don't, whatever you do, add GLITTER to your craft box!

It's a Banned Item in our house

*Also for your box, those washable paint pens with screw on caps. They're great for painting without having to get out brushes etc. and you can then do "magic painting" by drawing with a white crayon and then going over it with a paint pen.

I would also recommend some small bean bags for simple throwing and catching games and hiding for "warm, warmer, hot!" games. (I've seen some lovely ones with streamers attached that look great when thrown)

I would agree with the stickers, and would also recommend some balloons (for keepy-uppy games)

Tescos do some fun cheap little games like wobbly chef, which are quite fun.

Sometimes I even jusr blow up the airbed in the lounge and let DD1 bounce around for an afternoon.

If you don´t enjoy reading aloud, maybe an alternative would be looking at photos while feeding the baby. Dd (now five) could look at our old photos for hours. Probably thinking how ridiculous mummy looked - or maybe just in wonder that mummy has ALWAYS looked that bizarre! But seriously, we have a box of photos and she can spend ages going through them.

play who am i
whilst sitting down, you say you are pretending to be someone from either fave tv show, film, relative, book etc
so for example say
Who am I... I have knobbly knees (wait for some tension to build) I have turned out toes (more waiting) etc and build up loads of clues until they shout out gruffalo
or I live in the night garden, i like stones, I have an uff puff....

Keeps us amused for hours and hours, and we're currently always a disney princess (colour dress is her fave.!)

Put a number of e.g. kitchen utensils out - name them together. Hide under a tea towel. Make your DD close her eyes and remoe one item. Have your DD remove the tea towel and try to remember the missing item.

Playing memory or picture lottery.

Listening to music / dancing / singing. Listening to audio books.

Have some photos of your DD developed / print them yourself, let her cut and glue to make nice cards to post to relatives.

we have this from argos. All the craft stuff you could need, and you can buy bits and pieces to add to it from places like Wilkinsons etc. We made puppets on lollipop sticks that kept DD1 (2.6) amused for ages!

Also, for no-mess painting get an aquadraw mat, or some of the mini ones. DD loves her mini Dora the explorer ones, she paints them then puts them on the radiator and watches them dry til she can do them again!

Jigsaws are good, and I also got this dress-up bears puzzle recently and she loves it - I'll ask her to get the bears ready for bed, or to get ready to go out in the rain, it's fab.

And don't feel guilty about the tv... when DD2 was born I ordered a whole load of disney-type dvds from Amazon that I knew wouldn't send me loopy like Cbeebies does. DD2 is 4 months now and we still often all snuggle up together under a blanket on a rainy afternoon to watch Nemo or Madagscar.

"Colour Wonder" pens and pads are good if you are worried about her going mad with pens while you are trying to feed.
Dressing up? Doesn't have to be special bought expensive Disney dresses or anything, just put your old high heels, hats, scarves etc in a box and set up a mirror for them to look in.

Dolls House -- if you have limited room (we do too at the moment, just one small room with kitchen at one end, living room at other) then you can get a Peppa Pig one or something like this:
www.amazon.co.uk/Princess-Peppa-Pig-Peppas-Palace/dp/B001Q3LX9W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1289227427&sr=8-2
I was going to suggest the one that is smaller (which is the one we have), but then saw that this one was £20 off!
My two love putting furniture in and out and playing with the dolls, can do it for hours.
Apparently if you watch tv with them it is much better for them than just being left on their own with it (guilty), so it sounds like you are doing better than most of us anyway...