How to keep 2 year old entertained all day

[Karma1387]

Just looking for some useful ideas and suggestions. Sorry for the long post.

Prior to getting pregnant with DC2 I never let my DC1 watch tv besides the occasional Miss rachel when he first woke up. Unfortunately when I got pregnant between sickness, pain and exhaustion we basically live off the TV currently.

DC2 is due in a few weeks and I would really like to try to cut back down on the TV. He loves watching a film but I don't want to continue with all day having it on.

Thankfully he goes to nursery 3 days a week so he gets a break then and we try to go to my dads once a week but it does mean hes having at least 3 days with an insane amount of TV.

But I find it very hard to know what to do for 10 hours a day with him. Hes not big enough to go around soft play yet on his own and we don't have a lot of groups etc around us that aren't pricey (and honestly I hate them). Hes extremely energetic and its become very noticeable that his behaviour is getting bad when we are just spending whole days inside.

So any suggestions on how to keep a very energetic 2 year old entertained (whilst having a newborn) would be greatly appreciated.

Our local zoo is 40 mins away although its a bit rubbish but I think they do a annual membership. All the other zoos are over an hour away so not something we can do super regularily. We unfortunately live in the middle of nowhere so we don't really have museums etc around us. But I think we will have to trek to some of the country parks and national trust parks and accept the disruption to his naps.

• Throw some stuff in slow cooker for tea
• church playgroups in the morning
• Maybe a coffee or mooch around charity shops if the church was nearby. Buy something useless
• Play cafes/role play cafes/small soft plays on other days
• The library for rhyme time etc or just to pick a few books out
• Lunch outside as a picnic at the park in the warmer weather, home for lunch and a Julia donaldson movie/tractor Ted or here comes a Digger DVD. quiet time/lunch nap
• scuttlebug or small balance bike etc in a playground
• In summer you can go to the splash pad, play in the garden after lunchtime. Big mixing tray outside for messy play, a herb garden etc
• Big Days Out: the farm, local theme parks where he's free under 3. I had a peppa pig world annual ticket with all mine as they were free so just paid for me - took them all the time as we were local. When I moved I made sure I had annual tickets to the oceanarium and local farm etc when that age to make use of the free age!
• Science museum etc similar should be free for his age
• Other ideas: swimming! Tires them out totally then home for a quiet lunch

At nursery they mainly free play and a bit of garden time and some arts and crafts and reading by himself which he loves. Ill be honest hes there 7.5 hours but i'm pretty sure between his naps (1-2 hours depending on his mood), snack, lunch and afternoon tea he doesn't have too many hours to fill

OK, so can you treat 9am-4.30pm like nursery and follow the same structure? I know they have free play but there is still a structure to the day and no tv. If he can do this at nursery, he can do it at home with some input from you.

Unfortunatly I don't have any friends to go out with or help. My dad is nice enough to let us come destroy his house on a Sunday morning to break up the day.

Our local park is rubbish so I think I will have to try to find some places we can drive to for him.

The bath. You can do loads with the bath. Just chuck them in with a bunch of stuff.

The issue at home is he has a considerably longer nap. So we are up roughly 8-1 so we have 5 hours to fill and then he naps roughly between 1- 4 depending on how tired he is. Then we have another 5 hours after that.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner doesn't seem to take as long as it obviously does in nursery as its just him. So its so hard to fill so much time (more so at the moment where its dark early) and hes up late.

When you say the local park is rubbish - what does it have? They need very little!

Looking back, I wish I was less entertaining and teach them that mummy is actually quite boring so they'll learnt to play by themselves. Cut the TV - maybe put a timer switch on it so it doesn't work? Admittedly, I did spend most of the time outdoors. Get him to help with chores and help with the baby. Cut yourself some slack, a newborn is hard enough. If he's bored, he's bored.

Balloons
Cheap latex balloons.

No its not a comprehensive entertainment schedule BUT They literally entertain kids for an entire afternoon.

My sanity has been saved by balloons on at least 5 occasions

Waterplay. DC both loved filling the baby bath with lukewarm water, and then get lots of water toys - they had plastic waterwheels and watering cans and seives and turkey basters etc. They used to stand just outside the kitchen door in wellies, nappies and vests with bob the builder hard hats on and play for a good hour. Too cold to do that right now. But you could put a couple of old towels down on the kitchen floor with the baby bath on top.

Good thing is, however messy it gets, it's just water, so you can mop it up.

Get him involved with activities. Go to the supermarket - nice and bright on cold dark days, and chat to him about what you are doing. Ask him to help choose carrots or potatoes and help weigh them. Ask him to hold things that are easy for him to hold and praise him for being strong, carrying them.

Get him to 'help' make dinner with any easy safe job you can think of giving him. He can put the veg peelings (not onions) into a pot for the recycling. Or wash his hands and then sprinkle the grated cheese on top of the pizza or macaroni etc.

Ask him to help sort laundry into pale and dark heaps. Or to find the matching sock so you can pair them. Just let him join in with your day.

Add a bit of structure. A job then a rest with a healthy snack - glass of milk or slices of fruit, then go out to the playpark if it is fine or the supermarket or shopping mall if not, or to the library to read two books quietly and then come home and make lunch together. Then let him watch TV.

Breakfast lunch and dinner can take way longer if he 'helps' set the table, make the food, clear the table, wash up dry up, put away etc. It's a way of teaching him necessary skills, connecting with him and killing time.

Such a cliche but so true of this period of life; the days are long but the years are short. In a couple of years he'll be in full-time school.

Finger painting if you can bear the mess - might be a bit young for drawing.
Taking all the tupperware out of the cupboard.
Messy bath with paint. My mum made some chocolate blancmange once when we were little and it didn't set so she put us in the bath with it!
He might need showing how to play with play dough - let's make a sausage, now a pancake.
Rhyme Time at the library, get a book or 5 and read them at home.
Ducks, remember to feed them oats not bread!

What do you give them? We haven't got to the stage of letting him be in the bath on his own as I cant lean over if he falls and he has tendancy to stand up and walk around so I worry about him falling.

Oh and "helping" with the washing, whose sock is that, now this one, pass you a wet sock to put on the rack, stirring an empty pot on the floor while you cook or "cutting" playdough, "dusting" with a sock, "sweeping" the floor with the brush from the dustpan. Never too young to learn! My DS used to "sweep" from his highchair.

All the clean plastic recycling. Or paint.
Get a non stick mat for the bottom of the bath. Or just set a rule - no getting up or the water goes away. Might take him 3 or 4 goes to grasp that but he should do at this age.

Trip out on the bus or train, just for the trip.

He plays with playdough at nursery but at home he just wants to rip it apart and put it in the bin.

I tried doing it in the living room rather than the dining table to see if he would play with it but he just kept taking it out of the tray and shoving it in the carpet or screaming for the bin!

I wish we had some ducks near us but we dont unfortunatly. We read lots of books probably 10-20 a day plus he reads on his own.

What's wrong with running around in the park, or climbing on the sofa?

Honestly, just push through this. The answer for an energetic boy is not to zombify him in front of the TV.

Get up, get dressed and get out of the house, come rain or shine. Rain is great - it means puddles to splash in. Go supermarket shopping together, even if you hate it - you don't need to get everything you need. Let him have a kitchen band while you are cooking. Get him involved in tidy-up time. Basically, have a relationship with him and praise him for his wonderful imagination, and all the nice things about him.

Don't worry about the baby. Younger children know their place in the pecking order.

Our public transport is horrible here but we could drive to some places if I put my big girl pants on. ( I hate driving)

Snowsuit- garden- mud kitchen
go for a walk
painting- outside or in the bath.

If you drive it opens up a lot of opportunities- look up free activities in the area.

You can't live in the middle of nowhere and not drive much! Definitely put your big girl pants on and get out there. Bet you've got nice countryside and parks nearby

Don't mind about naps. You can't keep a strict schedule with more than 1 child. Your second will be forced to adapt and go along with stuff like nursery and school pickup so may as well be less strict now.
I never had the 3 hour nap thing with any of my DC, they stopped napping around 18mo-2!! Unless on a big drive out etc

Yotos are great to replace TV with as well
I'd recommend trying to swap to DVDs so at least there's a beginning and end rather than episodes on autoplay. Even cbeebies OK as some of the stuff on there they won't like
Or swap to nature documentaries on the TV instead

The climbing on sofa I don't allow as its dangerous and how do you teach a child the difference between they can do it at home but not somewhere else?

There isn't a problem with him running around the park its more he is bored super quick at our local one. I think ill have to drive elsewhere to take him to the bigger country parks with some trees and better playgrounds.

I am trying to teach him to tidy up although very unsuccessfully at the moment (hes not quite 2 so not sure if thats normal)

Once our kitchen is sorted I will 100% be getting him involved as he is desperate to join me in there.

I know baby will be okay I can babywear him its more I can't do the running around our rather small living room or roughouse with the baby there so I need to find other ways of keeping him entertained.

We have been out in the rain a couple of times but he hates it currently. Not quite hit the age of jumping in puddles I'm sure once he learns to do that he will love the rain!

@Karma1387you drive somewhere to then catch the bus or train, the purpose of the outing is to experience the bus or train.

Same with shopping. You go somewhere and buy a handful of things so your toddler has the experience.

It doesn't have to be water, or not a lot of water. Foam letters, crayons, shaving foam were big favourites. If you do put water in then literally just spoons and tubs along with the shaving foam. Or you can get foaming soap from places like Home Bargains, which is coloured and kids love it.

Something we also used to do if there's a safe way for your wee one to reach a window (we have big glass back doors) is any kind of foam shapes and a wee tub of water. Easy clean up and foam shapes are fairly cheap. It would keep my daughter entertained for ages from when she was a toddler right up til she was about 6.

Also if you have the space, planting seeds. We had space for a little plastic greenhouse and we were rarely successful in actually growing anything but she loves filling little plant pots with soil and planting seeds

We had a routine-

7 breakfast
8 dress/get ready
9-12 outing
12 lunch
1 nap
3 activities- toys/garden/messy play
4 tv
5 tea
6 quiet time - reading/jigsaws etc
7 bedtime
outings varied - woods, park, soft play, playgroup, visit grandparents, interactive museum, swimming

there a website called days out for kids you can put in your postcode and it tells you what’s local. Or trip advisor.