Hello
I’m looking for ideas/daily routine suggestions for my 3yo and 6 mo. At the moment the 3 yo is at the childminder 4 days a week but this is going down to 3 days in feb.
When it is just me, 3yo and baby we go to playgroup from 9-11, come home for lunch, then husband watches the 3yo (he is wfh) while I put baby down for her nap, then I come down and play with 3yo or we watch TV. When baby is up, we go for a walk or 3 yo just plays with his toys while the baby is on her play mat. The toddler doesn’t nap anymore but he wakes up at an ungodly hour (5am) and becomes manic at about 10/11am so needs quite a lot of attention/redirection to prevent him from tearing up the house.
Husband is going back to the office soon and I would like to make my days with the toddler and baby a bit more interesting for all of us. We’ll still go to the playgroup but it is only on one morning a week so need to find something else to do on the second morning.
I would love to spend more time outside but I find it sometimes takes me an hour to get the toddler dressed and out.
Also, what do you do with both of them if it’s rainy or too cold to go out? We do things like painting or play dough but these activities don’t last too long so we rely on TV a lot which I know isn’t ideal but is sometimes the only way I can get stuff done.
I am hoping a routine will help calm the toddler down a bit and prevent him from tearing the house up so much. He’s also only just potty trained so I have to be on the ball with recognising his toilet signals (he never tells me he needs to go).
Also, for baby naps at home - how do you do this on your own? I can’t leave the toddler downstairs on his own for 30 mins while I put baby to sleep. Even with TV, I can see him wandering off and I don’t want him to hurt himself!
Thanks in advance!