What to do with toddler in afternoon/ evening

[ForeverBubblegum]

Two year old DS wakes up from his nap some time between 2-3 depending on when he's gone down and how long he's slept. He has a late tea/supper at about 7 then bed at 8, so we have 4 or 5 hours to fill.

Toddler groups tend to be on a morning or after lunch whilst Ds's sleeping and it's getting to cold for the park. At the minute we just seem to potter about with his toys and watch CBeebies, but feel we should be doing more with this time and DS could do with a something to burn off energy.

What do others do with there toddlers in the afternoon?

To be honest we’ve always just wrapped up and got outside/to the park etc, or visited friends. With the winters being so long there’s no way we could cope with staying in when it’s cold!

Library
Swimming
Park
Museum
Feed the ducks
Soft play

If it's dry we brave the park, but if DS doesn't wake up until 3, and it starts getting dark at 4 we seem to spend more time layering up and travelling then playing. Swimming would be good, but our local pool closes for lessons which are 4+.

Soft play is an option, but could probably only afford once a week, so could do with some cheep/ free activities in between. Will look into opening times for library, ours run groups earlier on, but will still have a children's corner with toys.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, and sorry if I seem to be poo pooing everything.

We mostly go out in the mornings and then afternoons are more for pottering, going to park, going to supermarket kind of thing. But then my kids eat at around 5 and are in bed for 7 so we have less time to kill. Maybe try pushing nap a bit later if he’s not going to bed til 8? I agree the afternoons can seem like eternity

On nursery days he has a nap at 1 (whole group nap at same time), he seems to get tired around this time, so it's easyer to stick with their routine when possible. Some days we'll skip the nap but then he's ready for bed by 6 and wakes up at 4am.

He does seem to be out sinc with 'normal' toddler sleep timings but he'll only sleep 10 hours max, so this works best for getting a full nights sleep (8pm-6am)

Mine had dropped their nap by 20 months and slept 7-7 at night so the same amount of sleep as yours, just at different times.

I actually found that the nap dropping made our days easier as we went our for day trips without having to think about nap times etc!

Running errands. If you don’t have the school run to do in the afternoon, go do your food shopping. Go to the library. Go for a coffee and walk around town. Playground even if dark and cold.

My DD eats dinner at 5 so between the wake up from her nap and teatime there isn’t much time to fill. We tend to go out in the mornings then in the afternoon and evening gaps play at home

Go for a walk around the neighbourhood when it gets dark, give dc a torch and just amble around. It will take forever and be boring as hell but dc will love it

If we're staying at home we often get the art stuff out and he draws pictures and things. Then if he's made a real mess I put some warm water and lots of bubbles in the washing up bowl, stand him on a stool and let him have at it, while I mop the floor around him!

Or we wrap up and go into the garden, even just for half an hour. Do you have any outside space? You could make a bug hotel and then go hunting for bugs - keeps DS occupied and doesn't take much space up. We just used stuff we found on the floor, in the woods and in the garden - pine cones, hedge clippings and some rotting bits of wood. He loves turning things over to find bugs! And the other day his football was floating in a bucket half full of rainwater, which he found hilarious almost beyond measure

Library is a good shout, we've never been to a group there but we pop in some afternoons to find books and potter in the toy corner. He likes he self-service machines as well.

Or sometimes we do curl up on the sofa and read or watch a film or CBeebies - that's ok too, especially at the end of the week at this time of year, when they're tired and when the weather is awful.

If you've got a Wyvale garden centre nearby, they often seem to have small soft play areas in their cafes which are cheaper than big ones, I think. DS enjoys roaming around the garden centre looking at the plants and the water features and things too.

There’s a fantastic early years specialist called Play Horray. Follow her on Insta and/or Facebook, she gives tons of easy okay set ups for inside and outside, and most are with stuff you already have, or things that are cheap and easy to find.

I bought a pack of playprompts from her and they include suggestions like ‘make a homemade washing line with string and pegs’ or ‘put a blanket over a table to make a den’. She saved my bacon on numerous times, I’m sure you’ll find some nice activities for him as the evenings draw in.

So my DS has his tea at about 4.30 and then supper at 7 and sometimes naps until 3 so we have less time to kill. But we layer up and go out in the garden playing,
What time does your child have his tea ??? If he is going form 2 until 7 without food, I would add in a snack time or bring tea earlier and five snack/ supper at 7

SoyDora – 12 consecutive hours of sleep would be great, I’ve spent the last 6 months thinking he’ll get there soon, but he hasn’t. No matter what time he goes to bed or how long he’s been up for, he will only stay in bed for 10 hours, and even then it’s 50/50 if he will wake and need resettling. (I know, not a good sleeper, but actually massively improved from a few months ago). If we go out for the day he will skip the nap, but he literally won’t be able to keep his eyes open past 6, or worse falls asleep on the drive home.

Tigger001 - There’s a snack about an hour after he wakes up, which can vary from some fruit if he’s had a big lunch, to practically another meal if he picked at it.

Think I am going to have to ‘woman up’ and go out in the cold, I’m just really feeling it at the minute as it’s go from surprisingly warm to frosty in the last week or so. Garden centres are a good idea, we have been heading to the supermarket more often just to get out the house, but seeing plants, water features and (maybe) fish would be much more engaging for him.

I probably also need to stop been so lazy and organise some more structured play / activities at home as well. We do quite a bit of colouring (scribbling), but with anything more complicated it always ends up feeling like I’m the one doing the activity and he spends a lot of time watching or needing to be encouraged to copy what I’m doing. Possibly an age thin as he’s only just turned two, but even playdo he just hand me it and tells me what he wants me to make (usually a dinosaur)

If you’ve got a Pets at Home nearby that’s always good to kill half an hour!