What do you do all day?

[LissyD]

I'm a SAHM at the mo to a 15 month old dd, and I'm often at a loss for what to do all day with her and when I'm meant to get the housework done. How do you do it?

Dash about in a blind panic because I'm always running late.

DSs are 5 and 3 so they're out and about a fair bit and I'm a class rep at school so have to get involved in stuff.

You do the housework with her. Has she got a little broom/ironing board and iron/washing machine/pots and pans/duster etc?

I primarily do stuff with dd - go to groups, to the park, meet friends, play at home etc. If she is asleep or happens to be absorbed in what she's doing or happy playing by herself I get a bit of housework done.

Agree with Anna - she'll just follow you round, and enjoy "helping" - can make jobs a bit longer, but it's fun.

Actually Anna's right - she does help me when I potter about too.

And yes, park, local animal place, beach, swimming, friends' houses, play in garden, paint, crayon, walks.

anna, shes a bit young for that, surely? SHe can just about manage to play with her blocks if I'm sat nearby and she can come and show them to me and babble at me for a bit every now and again. I can get about half a sink of washing up done with her in her highchair before she starts climbing out of it. I suppose I can hoover round her when shes playing in the front room, but she does try to make friends with the hoover while I'm doing it. DO you think I should be encouraging her more to play by herself by now? How do I do that, because as soon as I turn my back shes doing her trick of finding the most dangerous thing in the room to play with.

I have two boys at school and a 9mo dd. I meet up for coffee with other mums regularly just to have an adult conversation. When seriously bored I call my DH and bore him with the details of my day!! I put dd on a rug in the garden and do some gardening whenever possible. I take her to baby music once a week. I carry her around the house and sit her in whatever room I need to clean and sing to her or chat. I go for LONG walks when she is grizzly. And scarily I actually look forward to the school run as it gives me something to do twice a day.

Little ones can be intensely boring, they get a lot more interesting as they get older IMO......

I wouldn't say she's too young to "help" - they do like to copy at that age. If you're washing up, stick her on the kitchen floor with a basin of water and some cups, toys, etc - she may well tip it all over the floor at some point (and then you get the floor mopped!). Ironing I don't do when dd's around just now - she's 20mo and likely to pull the whole lot over still.

At 15 months? No, she's not too young at all .

My daughter's first word was "thank you" - she learnt it because she used to unload the washing machine and I said thank you to her for everything she passed me .

At 15 months she can sort dirty washing (you can teach her colours and what belongs to whom and the names of bits of clothing), unload the washing machine, dust...

My daughter is now 3.7 and her favourite task is pairing socks from the clothes airer - we do adding and subtracting and colour groups etc.

Stick her in the bath for an hour while you clean the bathroom - you can sing and chat and she'll have a good soak.

An hour!!

I'm a nanny to three children, we tend to do a couple of classes during the week art club, toddlers, and activity time, as well as a trip into town to go to the library buy fruit/veg of the market etc, other morning we stay at home, and tidy up our bedrooms - the little one helps with this (aged 1) and I put on some washing, and generally tidy up whilst she is playing - then when she has her afternoon sleep (1.5 hours) I tend to batch cook meals, hang out washing, put dishwasher on - general duties etc and sit down with a cup of tea, a magazine and a slice of cake.

It's a double whammy Habbibu - extra clean bathroom and extra clean child

dd would no doubt choose that as the occasion to give Mummy a little extra to clean up...

Give her a duster, mine love cleaning which is great because I don't