Solo parenting a toddler and 3m old

[ecossegirl91]

Just that really. What do you do?
3m old naps on me or in carrier so that does inhibit mobility a bit.

we go the park in the morning, but I’m a little stumped for the afternoon.
my almost 3yo is not crafty - will not colour, sticker or paint (I’ve set up these numerous times and he won’t do it)
he’s also not great at independent play and things like blocks / duplo only engage him for 10mins.
I can read books with them both but can’t for a full afternoon.
when the baby is awake I can pop him on his playgym and I can play with my toddler in his kitchen or playing shops but he won’t do it without me. He might do a jigsaw puzzle for a little bit.
it’s really during feeding / naps that I struggle without putting a film on ☹️

just looking for ideas really.

really looking forward to when baby 2 is more interactive for my toddler!

Stay and play in the morning, park in the afternoon?
Visit relatives or friends?
How often do you have toddler and baby together all day? If it's only once or twice a week, I wouldn't feel guilty about a film. It's not forever 😊

I have a 2.5YO and a 5 month old but toddler still naps so that takes up a good chunk of time!

It’s not that often, toddler is in nursery 3 full days and then I usually get my folks to come over a day on one of the other days! So it’s maybe just one full day solo and then perhaps half a day at the weekend when hubby goes to football for the afternoon.

thank you tho, I feel so guilty about screens! 🤪

My life revolved around church play groups when I had a baby and a toddler.

But also, your toddler has to get better at independent play and they will naturally because you just will not be available a lot of the time.

Also, we are not big on TV but, at that stage it did get used for critical moments!

I remember this phase. DS is now 6 months and getting him used to pram naps was a life saver. Took a while but he will now have pretty much all his naps in the buggy which makes our day so much easier and flexible. For your toddler, some activities that would buy me some time to breastfeed/put ds to sleep etc were:
toni box and a snack
baby doll play
play doh or slime
little ‘jobs’ to do like cleaning something with a baby wipe
I also often let her run loose in the garden. And I did stick the tv on a fair bit. I didn’t feel bad about resorting to screens - like you, we were out the house a lot and sometimes we just need to get things done!

My 3 year old didn't have much time for blocks either but magnatiles could entertain him for hours.

We did drop off activities - football, gymnastics and music class. Only 45 mins but the travel there and back and snack time afterwards meant it filled the afternoon well. It meant someone else had the job of entertaining/occupying dc1 and I could just hover with the baby.

When my friends kids were smaller they loved building dens - even as simple as blankets stretched between two chairs or over a table or between an airer and something else. Put some more blankets/pillows etc on the floor. It makes other activities like having a snack in there or reading a book in there more fun, and they can hopefully be occupied working to make it cosy and how they want it if you can get it started.

Have you got things like train tracks and cars and the like? If you can start off making a bit of a race track on a big sheet of paper that can help prompt them to play more than just pushing a car back and forth for a few minutes.

Cardboard boxes are always great. Big cardboard box, cut a window in it, they can turn it into a spaceship or a house or a tank or who knows what, give them some pens and stickers to encourage decoration and they can play in that hopefully for a while.

Tea parties are a classic, or restaurants, where you and some toys can be the customers and get to sit down and put your orders in which are then made and brought to you. Having some key items like a toy birthday cake gives a lot of scope for they can throw a party and sing and dish out slices of cake to everyone. Or my friends had a wooden ice cream set and doing ice cream orders was a good one.

As they get a bit older the scope for those sorts of roleplay games will increase. Things like playing vets or doctors, toys are injured or sick and need to be treated, you come up with outlandish scenarios. Or playing schools, he can be the teacher or you can be. Or police and baddies - toys have committed a crime of some sort and stolen something, have to hunt them down and get the jewels back, put the toys in prison. With luck you get him started off with a bit more direct involvement then you take more of a back seat/observational role while sat down to one side when he's into the scenario.