baby ruining toddlers play

[Jvkmumoftwo]

Looking for advice of how people deal with their younger children "ruining" their other childs play, i have a 3 year old and a 10 month old, my 3 year old loves games and play that involve constructing... lego, making train tracks, building towers etc stuff that take time and effort, my 10 month old.... loves to destroy them all, i want to be able to play with my toddler but find myself using all my effort to destract the baby from going near what he is building, which means my toddler is playing alone, ive tried giving the baby his own built train track and tower for him to knock over etc but for some reason only my toddlers will do!

That's what play pens were invented for! Well probably not literally but work well! Put either one in there!

Older child in the play pen. Stops the baby knocking things over or eating small parts.

Were struggling with this at the minute too similar age gap. It's a lot of give and take from all of us- toddler and baby both have to learn patience and adult has to kind of juggle it all and sometimes just hold baby and keep distracting. I also give toddler toys for their bedroom that are 'special' and say anyone is allowed to play with the lounge toys.

Would they be able to play with their toys on the Dining Table, if you have one?

This is my life at the moment! Same here, 3 y old and 10 month old, the older one can’t have a propper snack without little one trying to climb and have a bite :-) We pu puzzles or leggo on a higher dinning table and some toysfor the baby on the floor next to us, or I try to engage them in some sort of together play, which usually turns into older one playing football or imitating T Rex around the room and baby giggling and chasing him…Noisy and messy tbh.. When dad comes from work he takes the baby in one roomwhile I play with 3y in another or he gets to play alone, whatever his mood is…

This has single handedly been the most unexpectedly different thing I’ve faced since having my second! Mines are 3.5 and 15 months and unfortunately it’s not getting any better yet! TBH I don’t think you can stop it, when my daughter wants to colour she has to do it at the dinning table so the baby can’t steal her pens/ rip her masterpiece. Other than that I just try and do things they can both enjoy, movement games, dancing, playdough, water play, chasing etc. Then when the baby is sleeping give my daughter proper 1:1 time building etc. we’ve also started letting our daughter stay up half an hour later than the baby so she gets both mummy and daddy’s full attention for a bit at the end of the day, we play board games or card games, snap or uno. it’s actually become a really nice routine and a lovely way to end the day.

Yep. Baby jail.

Yes, play pen for the toddler. Make it a baby free zone where they can play undisturbed. Worked a treat for us.

We barricaded off a section of the lounge for the toddler! The gaps between armchair, footstool, then sofa weren't that big, so we just filled those in. It wasn't a long term solution (baby obviously learns to climb up on the sofa and over eventually), but it helped us out for a bit.

We also thought about putting a baby gate on the toddler's door so that she could build stuff in her bedroom whilst baby played on the (large) landing. We didn't end up doing it, but it might work for someone else.

It doesn't get better tbh! We've got an almost 6 year old and a just over 2.5yr old and they clash very often when playing. I'm hoping its ending soon!

Like a PP we put a baby gate on the toddlers bedroom door and most of the choking hazard toys were kept in there, it also gave toddler a baby free zone. If the toddler chose to play in the rest of the house then their games were joint property. They quickly learned to keep their special stuff in their bedroom