What do you do with your 20 month old?

[alittleteapot]

Feeling in need of inspiration. We do lots of things, painting, playdough, stories, pretending to cook and make cups of tea set, bit of music, cardboard house, puzzles, a bit of telly. Writing it down it sounds great but she's at an age of short attention span and I'm very tired at the moment (8 weeks pg) so just feel in need of injection of new ideas. Also wondering if i should be a bit more structured about what we do when. We generally go out in the mornings but afternoons are harder. if we haven't got a playdate it's just her and me so a bit boring sometimes!

this book is good

Thanks, looks good, just ordered it in fact!

Trip to the library helps when we are stuck.

Going swimming is a favourite and tires her out.

Have you tried involving her into making cake/muffin/cookies? My 19month old loves stirring the bowl. It works also with some savoury things. Depends on her sleeping pattern but you could do things she can eat as a snack in the afternoon.

DS (just about to turn 2) is big into sticking at the moment. So I cut up old magazines, catalogues etc, cover a sheet of paper in Pritt Stick and he loves sticking down all the scraps.

Weirdly, my DD at a similar age liked to do housework (far more than I did) so we did a lot of dustpan-brushing and washing up. She also loved to fold clothes (strange child) so at least we got some stuff done! Any real cooking she could get involved it? Mixing, tipping and pouring always went down well in our house (and still do at 2.8).

It's hard when you're tired though. Do you do toddler groups? Do you have a garden, or a yard you could put a tray out with sand and/or water in? We also put music on and do lots of action songs.

invite friends over in afternoon. go for walks. go to every free activiy for under fives going that you can find! do youy have childrens centres where you are> they are a haven of free activites and cake

i've just sat and written a timetable of external activities locally for the week. Part of the thing is we always did morning things and came home in the afternoon, but nowadays she really needs something each afternoon as well - it's just a bit too long now for us to kill time together.

I think it'll be easier now the weather's getting a bit warmer plus hopefully my energy levels will lift in a month or so.

All your ideas are really helpful, thank you. Yes she loves washing up, and helping with cakes and biscuits. For some reason I'm feeling like I need to be planning ahead a bit more what activities we're going to do. I'm just too tired to think on my feet at the moment.

PS Mij, yes dd loves wiping things up and stuff like that. No folding yet alas, but I am trying to build on her inbuilt desire for domestic order, which she has inherited from god knows where!

ps she loves having playdates but only really has two or three proper friends so far so not enough to fill all the slots we have yet.