Self-isolating with 19mo and no garden - help!

[houseargh]

Just that really - gonna be stuck in all week by the looks of things. We are obviously milking cartoons and snack treats for all they are worth but the days are still stretching out looooooong ahead of us. Give me your best ideas for activities that might keep a 19 month old entertained for longer than 5 mins (from my experience, that is almost nothing, but willing to try anything!)

If you are both well I'd be taking him for picnics in the park and building sandcastles at the beach tbh

You don't need to self isolate under the new rules. AFAIK. Outdoor activities are perfectly acceptable in non crowded places.

DD is 17 months and loves having a packet of pompoms (the little ones you'd use for craft projects) and a cardboard box to put them in - for ultimate fun cut small holes in the box that you can push the pompoms through.

What about some messy play with paint/ shaving foam etc? In the bath with DC just in a nappy leads to the easiest clean up.

I wouldn't be staying in in this situation.
Take them out.

DH and I have just had Covid and have a toddler dd 21 months.

Where we live we don’t have to isolate, although between feeling rough and feeling guilty we pretty much did for a week, a couple of times I pushed her out in her stroller, making sure to stay on the opposite side of the road to anyone else, as it’s the only way she’ll nap.

playdough is a good one here, needs supervising so she doesn’t eat it but it keeps her pretty busy. She’s also obsessed with stickers so I got quite a few reusable sticker books from Amazon - we had got her one for Easter anyway, and I ordered a couple more when I saw how well it went down.

If you have a full length window/ glass door anywhere you could get a spray bottle (clean if it had product in before) and get them to spray then you can stick foam letters/ shapes to it. She really liked that - you could do it on the side of the bath or maybe bathroom tiles too? Or in the bath? Baths in general - loads of containers, bubbles, bath crayons, play music, dim the lights and bring any light up or flashy toys in to the bathroom to make a ‘disco bath’.

Pile any cushions, pillows, plus size soft toys, sofa cushions etc onto the floor and cover with a sheet for a mini obstacle
course/ soft play.

Big storage tub, fill with pasta or lentils or rice or whatever you have and various containers/ scoops/ toy vehicles etc. Or do it with water. A good way to keep mess contained it get a fitted sheet, stretch it out sort of upturned and put a chair at each corner - keeps all the mess contained in there (in theory anyway).

you can get busy boards and things with different buckles, clips, buttons and zips to fiddle with from Amazon for about £12 - tjat
kept ours busy for a bit.

Standing at the sink washing up usually goes down well here too - we have a learning tower thing someone made for us but you could use a chair if you supervise.

PS we only got by with the occasional pushchair walk because we do have a garden, albeit tiny. In your situation I’d definitely be thinking of any quiet open spaces you could access with a ball or
whatever to let him have a charge around.

Thanks all, some great ideas in here. I know it's not a legal requirement to self-isolate, but we live in inner London so unless it's pouring with rain there really isn't much by way of quiet, empty outdoor spaces and I don't feel right taking her to slobber all over the equipment at the playground - but yeah, I can probably target the emptiest bit of park with a football for her to run around.

How about going for a walk early morning or evening time…
There are thousands and thousands of people walking around with covid, something like 1 in every 10 people have got it…

Thank God ,at least someone is talking common sense. Totally agree !

We will never be out of the pandemic though
1 in 10 have it
The person sitting next to you on the tube, or your work colleague
Someone sitting at the next table to you in Starbucks or a restaurant or a cinema!
(Not that i agree with going into places when you have it)

The OP is entitled to have a little walk around with her baby or a sit on the grass on a blanket while the baby toddles about,
and that is more than fine!!!

So do either of you have any advice in relation to the OP’s actual question? Given she said she’s planning to stay in and wanted some ideas for entertaining her young and full of beans toddler?

Big sympathies, we just had chicken pox and then covid!

Have you got money to buy some sensory type toys? I brought some cheap bits like a fibre optic lamp, projector, glow stuff and made a little indoor rave disco!

Paints, crayons, water play in the bath?

Any interest in baking?

Are they an early riser? When I hit my limit I would go out at 7am for a walk when it was really quiet.

Bless you

yes they advise to self isolate but sure Many don’t and go to work as can’t afford to be off

and its not the law anymore

obv London is different from countryside but I would try and get out either early or late in a buggy and walk to local park /grounds if you can , obviously avoiding people as much as you can.

if you don’t want to then any art stuff , sand , shaving foam (one of my favs) cornflour , chalk., paint , playdough

cooking

onv at their age they have attention span of 5 mins with Any activity

and in the long runs of things . Tv and snacks are fine. Even if all day

wont be forever

Around this age my DC absolutely loved a long, long bath after breakfast; we get some plastic dollies and wash them in the bath, blow bubbles, play pouring water in and out of various pots.

My DS also really liked it if I put an old duvet on the kitchen floor and put out a pile of pots and pans and wooden spoons gave him a tub of dried pasta to "cook".

Teddy's picnic or eating our lunch as a picnic on the living room floor is always popular. So is building a den, although at this age don't expect it to be used for long.

I do hear the point about avoiding crowded places but so many kids are mixing and covid presents asymptomatic in a lot of cases that isolation doesnt seem worthwhile - my DD gave covid to her dad and we only found out either of them had it by luck (we did LFT as a favour to reassure a friend we were planning to see, only to discover DD and DH were positive!).

Maybe IF people stayed home, 1 in 10 wouldnt have it
BUT maybe we would be like China!

would you prefer we are all locked in with no food and no money?
covid is going to be around FOREVER!
You get that right??? @pixie5121

Painting in the bath is a good one to do, or shower, used to let DD busily paint on the tiles and the bath with washable paint and then rinse it off. Also some messy play activities, adding food colouring to spaghetti when cooking and then putting a sheet down and a big plastic bowl with the spaghetti in it and letting them play, all stuff that's safe if they put it In their mouths.

Mine enjoy books and stories, and they can play with toy cars and garages or trains and tracks for what seems like hours.

Agree. Thank god some common sense.

it’s a week, and staying home could save someone’s life. Why do people need a law to force them to be decent people.

Again, to those derailing the thread to bemoan the ‘selfishness’ of the general population/ the wearing of masks in medical settings etc

Are you are have you previously been self-isolating with a toddler?

Do you have any useful suggestions to offer the OP? Which is what she started the thread for, and has not indicated that she was planning to go out or sit in any hospital waiting rooms unmasked or anything else of the sort.

@houseargh Do you have Instagram? There’s an account called play hurray and another called an activity a day that have some good ideas too

Just go out wherever you like - it's really not a big deal.