It doesn’t have to be profitable. I’m a single parent working 16 hours with a UC top up and toddler. Working in data entry (had to leave nursing degree due to childcare).

Im feeling really stuck at the moment and I don’t want to focus on my career too much yet but would like to start or build something.

One thing I absolutely love is looking at all Childress toys available. My son doesn’t have excessive amount don’t worry, due to finances, space and not wanting to spoil him. I really love and corporate some Montessori/Waldorf/reggio Emilia aspects at home and could spend all day looking at open ended toys! Lots of people have said to me I’m great with children, and my son is very advanced with speech and intelligent (I can’t take the credit though he is naturally gifted) I don’t have any significant formal qualifications in this area which is something to bare in mind.

This is why I think some form of childrens related business would be a great idea.

Ideas I have so far but nothing concrete:

• a website full of early years information and play ideas for parents (like a blog) and try and get health visitors/ social workers/ teachers/ nursery practitioners/ Speech and language therapists/ sleep consultants/ Physios and dieticians to do interviews or guest blog posts.
• a stay and play at the community centre. Could only be my local one and would need to enquire about storage space as I don’t drive. This would likely not generate profit and start up costs could be high. Not sure what types of activities to do, could be crafts, circle time, basic stay and play with toys and tea and cake (likely with donated toys), a Waldorf themed one with small parts (so no under 3s allowed) maybe a magical/woodland theme and a related story, seasonal with a different nature/weather/animal theme each week. Would like to keep costs low for parents too. Only issue is when my son is too sick to attend (gets constant colds in winter) and I would have to cancel classes, or if I can’t get enough people to cover the costs of the hall.
• I made some rainbow pasta for crafts today for my son, thought I would nose on Etsy. People are selling them with a high profit including sensory bin kits with dyed rice/beans etc. I’ve looked into this though as I’m not sure how they are doing this legally and with valid insurance as it’s a good item that’s become a non food item intended for play, rice and beans etc contain toxins when uncooked which is an issue. We don’t do too much of this at home anyway due to the mess!
• buying large wooden block sets and painting some with appropriate paint and reselling. As long as both blocks and paint are toy safe and I can get their certificates this should be fine. Making little pastel/themed colour sets. We love little Dutch!
• buying large grapat sets and splitting and reselling (not sure on laws here) but profit would be less than 50 for sure and is quite expensive.