Activities with a 1 and 2 year old

[Em2122]

Child nearly 3 and other is 12 months. When baby is not napping I usually go out In the pram because I feel stressed when they are both awake. I am spending far too much money on food though going to the supermarket, so I want to stay in more. The only places to go are the park and the supermarket. Playgroups are bit too far and not great either. Other activities like soft play are too expensive especially since COVID, it costs £10 for us all to go in soft play. Anyone else with two small children, what do you with them?

Park, feed the ducks, library, scoot with the oldest while you have a walk, depending how you feel about covid go on a bus.

Inside paint, drawer, playdoh, books, song, toys, water play in the garden.

I have an 11 month old and a 3 yr old so slightly wider age gap possibly easier, but I often get stressed too and I find it really hard to do things like paint/ sand/ play doh when they are both awake due to the 11m putting everything in his mouth so watching this with interest. Apart from going out for a walk, we do:

• water play in the garden - they have one tub of water each and some old pans/ spoons etc;
• “music time” - I put all the music toys/ instruments in a box and we get that out and play them/ dance to music;
• we have a routine where we watch one episode of baby club and then one of toddler club on cbbc (it is interactive so not just like screen time) and focus on one at a time with the other one “helping”
• we do “gentle time” either laying on the mat with music on and blowing bubbles over them for them to pop, or lying in the toddlers dark bedroom watching a star projector/ playing with torches on with music on.
• we do v basic cooking like decorating pre made buns or stamping out pre made cookie dough (only fun if you turn a blind eye to how much they eat)

We do loads of squabbling and me saying “no snatching toys” a million times

Yeah exactly baby puts things in mouth so it’s harder to do activities with 2 year old because of the baby.

I’d invest in a cheap bubble machine (under £10) and some PlayDoh. Other than that have a drawer of Tupperware etc that they can play with, dry pasta and a walk every day.