Ideas for toddler activities while feeding baby please!

[WhoahThereCrazyHorse]

I've seen this on here before, so if anyone can save time and link to a previous thread then please do.....

Just been reading the thread about what you spend your time doing with a newborn, and now I'm terrified! Am hoping to breast feed when new dc arrives in about 6 weeks and need to prepare with things for 21mo dd to do!

So far I'm thinking:

Cbeebies
Buttons - she loves them
Reading books together

Anything else?

It's going to be horrendous isn't it....

We have a treasure box - a box we decorated together which I have filled with new books, simple puzzles and a couple of sticker books. As DD is now two months old I swopped the contents with a friend recently, so it would still be exciting! Nothing too hard, things I can do with one hand. Works brilliantly, he has been known to tell me she wants milkie just to get to the box!

We also go to A lot of activities like mum and baby groups, where I cann sit down to feed and he is occupied by the other children and new toys.

I can feed in the sling just about if we are really struggling, and DD loves it so everyone's a winner!

Also have a last resort bag of chocolate buttons which I give him one at a time, broken in half which bought me 10 minutes would have been twenty but I nicked some

Often it is not about actually the toddler needing the attention, it's about the baby getting attention and the toddler feeling left out so if you can make it a non issue it's all a lot less stressful.

Marking my place, 20 month old DS2 has just started playing up usually by throwing things at me when I feed 5 month old DS3 and now DD and DS1 are going back to school there is nobody to help entertain him.
Love the treasure box idea, but I don't know what to put in it, DS2 is an active player rather tha a sit and player.

My dd was 24 months when her sister was born. No problems when feeding though. She plays with her lego, jigsaws, toys while I'm nursing and even nurses her own toys sometimes.

Will you have any help at home for the first few days? I think having DH off for a few weeks got DD1 used to having the baby as a permanent fixture.

8 months down the line, she has never objected to me having to feed the baby.

Marking my place too; though my DS will be a bit older at 2.10 years when DC2 arrives.

My ideas so far are:

Reading

Duplo

Toy vehicles

Train set

Sensory play eg playing with rice, lentils, pom poms, pebbles, shells, lolly sticks, straws, ribbons, pine cones etc. Hiding objects in sand / boxes of rice can be fun. Chucking straws about is fun & easy. Putting items into jars / cups / bowls / egg boxes / ice cube trays can be fun for younger toddlers. There are loads of ideas for 'invitations to play' on The Imagination Tree (and more in-depth ones on her blog)

Water play - DS used to spend ages stood on the toilet lid playing at the sink while I was in the bath (a good place to feed baby!)

Jigsaws

Playdough

Magnets (shapes, letters, numbers, magnetic pom poms or lolly sticks)

Throwing soft balls into a corner of the sofa (ball pool balls are great for this), or collecting / emptying into a large box

Drawing / colouring

Saucepans / toy kitchen

Roll of sellotape and a few kitchen roll tubes / egg boxes

Wooden building bricks - good for knocking down

A long tube and some vehicles can be fab - we've had poster tubes, curtain rail packaging and even wrapping paper tubes if your cars are small - just tip up at one end and you have a great ramp. Works with balls as well.

Divide normal toys into 3 or 4 groups, put all but one group away and circulate once a week (or whenever they seem to be losing interest in the current ones). It works a treat, and they play with them for much longer at a time. I do this with books as well."

The treasure box can contain anything which they might enjoy - just having something saved specially for feeding time can be enough to keep their interest.

I have a sling too, so hopefully I should be able to get reasonably involved in DS's play, and get out of the house.

Wowsers Angeldog you sound like a real pro!!

Singing action songs like sleeping bunnies helped me!

Your new baby might be a fast feeder. Mine was so playing while feeding didn't work. Have you ever tried to get your dc to do something when they don't want to?

They'll be climbing all over you, demanding mummy milk or launching themselves off the dining table just as you latch on

With ds, I did have a bag of surprise toys that he'd not seen before or hadn't seen often. Had to be quick and dirty - toys that required setting up didn't work. So ds loved matchbox cars, peppa magazines etc so I stocked up and would get them out so he could look at them and not need much input from me.

The worse kind of feeds were the ones outside. I remember being at a music class with ds and a 4 week old dd who needed feeding. Ds decided to run off and jump every where while the teacher commented on it (thanks lady ). After that, I made sure I carried loads of snacks and would whip one out while feeding and ds would eat while dd did.

My ds isn't a sit still kind of child though hence having to adopt different tactics. I had romantic notions of us three cuddling while I read and fed DD. sadly DS didn't

Agree with all of the above, it can be done . I also carried on going to baby groups, which worked out great as DS played and I either fed DD or stuck her in a sling.

There are some tips on kellymom too and like others have said, your new LO might surprise you, our DD fed for 10 minutes every 3 hours. I'd been expecting to be stuck to the settee permanently after feeding DS.

Whoah - just too much time reading blogs and nicking other people's ideas

Other things I thought of are:

DS loves holding toys up to my Kindle light in a darkened room - he's fascinated by how it makes them look (you could use a proper light box for this sort of play) - loads of ideas if you google.

Typing in numbers on my phone (though it's useful to teach them not to press 9, as DS once called for an ambulance by mistake).

Typing on the computer

Pushing pipe cleaners through holes in boxes, or through colanders etc. Threading them through wide-weave canvas is good for older toddlers.

DS actually isn't interested in most of the things I've suggested, but he is a sit-down type of child, and I spend very little time playing with him normally so I think he'll enjoy having more attention and more time playing at home while I feed DC2. He loved it when I was semi-bed bound with a D&V bug a while back - I no longer spent half the day trying to do housework or hurrying him to get out somewhere. :)

We also bought DS a doll and he did play with it for a while.

iPad. Best thing I've ever bought