Sod the holidays, wtf do you do with them at weekends?

[r3dh3d]

Inspire me with things to do. Or reassure me that my uselessness is normal. Or just tell me about a typical weekend, what you actually do all day, hour after hour after hour after hour...

We've just had a 4 day weekend (I mean 4 days where I have to entertain 2 kids and DH) and I am so bored, frustrated and ashamed of my utter uselessness as a wife and parent that I could cry.

Truthfully? I rarely leave the house, and usually let DS2 put as many dvds on as he likes. . We do visit my mams, or MILS and if DH isnt working we sometimes go somewhere familiar.

We do go to the local SN toy library every other week, which is great, and they do trips out during the holidays, maybe it would be worth seeing if there was one in your area?

If it nice weather we try our best to talk a relative into joining us on a day out with the kids, we try to do trips to park and soft play.

I have friend with sn son so her family come here or we go her house and can relax knowing we understand eachothers children kinda thing other than that we tend to hang around the house and as above let them watch as many kids programs as they want just started encouraing the twins to play on the wii with their big sister as well. x

There's a cycling session near us - a wheels for wellbeing - with adapted bikes. DD can ride their bikes, so we all go there on saturday morning. Usually we get to this one.
Sunday we try to go swimming as a family. Most weeks we skip this one - but all enjoy when we manage to get there.
Saturday evenings we sometimes get together with some friends who have kids the same age and have known her for ages.
Other than that, it's the cbeebies website, dvd's and the garden. Sometimes softplay - but they are usually too noisy on the weekends.

DH takes the kids shopping on Saturday morning while I have a couple of hours off. I take the kids to church on Sunday morning (very, very tolerant and SN-child friendly church) and he has a couple of hours off. We quite often manage a trip to the park or swimming with all of us and from time to time friends come to Sunday lunch (but not that often). Otherwise, it's tv, garden etc and trying to get DS1 rested enough to be able to go back to school on Monday morning. Those families where everyone is doing different classes and activities all the time fill me with a mixture of envy and horror.

I am coming to dread weekends....my son is only 2 1/2 but because he has such a structured week, he is very demanding and wants attention all the time. He has CP and can't access any toys or games himself really. The only thing that he will do quietly on his own is watch TV.

I work full time, so have a lot of housework to do most weekends and feel terrible that he ends up in front of CBeebies a lot during the weekend. Doing his structured play feels like work and all the activities I plan, like painting or something, only take 5 mins before he is fed up.

Tend to feel generally crap that I am not doing enough for him at weekends so I totally understand how you feel.I tried to look at things to do for the bank holiday but found that hardly anything listed on 'kids sites' would be suitable. End up taking him to Tesco (which he likes) because it kills a while, or wander round shops, but not really good for him to sit in buggy for this long.

Very difficult. Knackered, so often don't do all that we should. CBeebies. Visit from Mum & Dad each day. Perhaps go to park. Church if we can cope with the strtuggle of getting them there, up the stairs, yet more stairs, etc. Blue badge helps - at least we can park on the double yellows outside church.

Most Saturday and Sunday mornings involve shopping. Afternoons are a bit harder and usually involve a mixture of computer time, drawing and crawling the walls. The oast few Saturdays have resulted in DS1 being sent to bed by about 6pm because his mood has been so awful and he's been quite nasty and destructive.

OMG, what would we SN families all do without the TV?!

We get a good respite package so that takes care of quite a few weekends - thank God. Otherwise, we slob around the house, DS1 watching TV in his room, DS2 watching TV in his room, DD asleep until noon then watching a computer screen in her room. Takes us an age to get out of the house then if I'm lucky, my little SN group will be open and save my sanity, or we go to the park weather willing, or cinema, DS's mood willing, or do farms, beach or anything that doesn't involve crowds.

I reckon I've won when the clock turns 4pm and we can start the TV routine again before bed. If things are really bad, DS gets a candlelit bath at any time of day and spends time alone in his room watching more TV.

I send him to his Dad's

once DD is better my weekends be erm garden garden more garden .Its unlevel so ds cant really get out there and quotes i had for someone come do the clearing and digging out for me were way to expensive so be me spade and a skip

Oh my God, I'm with you. I spend all week dreading the weekend...they always come around so soon! Seems a bit taboo to say you hate weekends and having to entertain your kids, so is great to read this thread. And I'm with Riven and DonkeyDerby...on Sat and Sun I count down to the earliest possible time (around 4pm) when I can start contemplating bedtime (and my glass/es of wine thereafter).

My daughter loves playing on playstation 3 or watch TV, but I cant stay indoors. I took her out to the park for a few hours. The other day we went for a walk and she ride her scooter. Today we went to the local library - she wasnt bothered about the books, but she lined up all the cushions and she was very happy and we boroughed a book out for tonights bedtime story. When the weather isnt good we bake cookies, read stories, paint or draw, make some glue pictures or play with water and stones in a bucket or play with playdough. It takes more hard work to keep them occupied, but you just have to be imaginative. And if you dont want to stay indoors, just go out even if its just to the park.

Um. "you just have to be imaginative" eh?

So your daughter can

• play on a playstation. Play full stop, in fact
• watch television for more than 10 minutes
• walk
• ride a scooter
• enter a library without screaming. Or tearing all the books up with her teeth.
• line up cushions, rather than eating or throwing them.
• bake cookies without throwing the mix on the floor, smashing the bowl and screaming from the sensory overload
• follow a story, at some level
• paint or draw rather than chew the crayons, drink the paint and tear the paper
• stick things on paper, rather than eat them and the glue
• play with water without tipping it all over herself and the house
• go to the park without screaming throughout because she is hypersensitive to cold

How about you use some imagination and come up with some ideas of how to entertain a child who can do NONE of those things. Oh and all activities must also be suitable for a bored NT 4 year old.

To everyone else - thanks.

We had an excellent easter monday at sainsburys. It was empty, they have a CCTV camera with the screen right there - so you can do stuff and see yourself at the same time. The fascination lasted for the whole shopping time. I could see her and hear her the whole time and the store was empty so we were all relaxed.
We did do some easter stuff but sainbury's was by far the best outing.

See, I can't even say things like this to some of my other friends. They look at me like this and pity my kids....

• play on the wii
• play-dough (dd2 will do this all day)
• make cakes
• sticking, cutting, painting
• bath (they will both play in the bath for ages).
• Trip too McDonalds (drive through, too stressful to go in and eat).
• Go to the pub/bear garden (if weather is ok).
• CBeebies
• PC

Dd1 (AS) is happy o stay in, dd2(ASD) has started asking to go out by saying 'get out' or 'go shopping'. We tend to stay in unless we go shopping of visit FIL. On sundays the step children come over which is great as they entertain the dd's and i get a rest.

She's 8 btw. When she was 3, it was like yours - eating the cushions, chucking everything off the racks at the supermarket, eating the crayons and paint (still does this one).

I do let her paint though. With water - no paint - it seems to keep her happy. And she drinks the water to her hearts content and I don't mind.
Water play is another one. Lay down the dirty laundry and let her play with the water at the wash basin till she's bored. Lasts hours sometimes. and the laundry is almost done at the end of it. Energy efficient washing!! Ds can join in too. Nothing better than making a mess!

She can cut and loves to cut tiny little pieces and then looks at them all. Again, lasts me out the cooking. She sits at the breakfast table and I get my cooking done. Need to keep an eye or he'll cut the blinds, her hair, curtain... Ds does some proper gluing and sticking too, so both are happy.

Another lifesaver used to be the Argos catalogue. Has grown out of it now.

She loves sticking pins in the pin board - the plastic ones that you're supposed to make butterflies etc patterns. Can sit for a while with this.
Then lining up stuff - beads, blocks , balls, cars - anything stimmy. I used to not like this as I thought it was feeding into the autism iykwim. But it's actually evolved nicely over the years and now it's very imaginative - all those balls are people going somewhere. Or they are fruits (pink ones are strawberries, blue ones are blueberries etc) and we are collecting them in a basket etc etc.

I'm with you r3. It helps if your child has the ability to play but it is so much more difficult if they can't do things like bake, play on a computer and walk properly (let alone scoot or ride a bike).

My SN group I am involved with has basically ended up with all the kids who don't play, mainly because they have such severe learning disabilities. They just wander around hitting people or throwing stuff or slamming doors. I love it, it saves my bacon time and time again.

We try and have at least one outing planned each day otherwise both dd (sn) and ds (nt) would end up watching their respective screens all day. This might be to friends or families house or shops or park or beach or pool. DS likes playing on the Wii so houses that allow for this are fine by him!

DD doesn't really play - she potters about aimlessly for short periods ( even with lots of input from me! ), so the only thing that entertains her without having to leave the house is Cbeebies, but only a select few progs, or dvd's. Don't know how I would get anything done otherwise. As it is she needs me to be in the same room as her and cries if I slip out to have a pee!!

We try and get a swim in if they are both healthy enough to go swimming. There's not been much of that so far this year.. It's the only thing they both like doing.

DD cries/ screams when we go to most places that we think might be fun for us all. We have run out of ideas now and just have a few friends and family she's ok visiting for an hour or so for lunch or cuppa.. She signs 'home' or 'car' almost as soon as we arrive anywhere unfamiliar. We are beginning to split off now into having one child each.

On a good day we may all just listen to some music at home and kids have a 'dance' about.. I have to do a lot of singing to help dd get through lots of the days events!! Usually songs from tv or dvd's..

At this time of year I keep finding myself having to explain/justify to people why we don't go on holiday. They mean well by trying to come up with ideas that would work, but they just don't get it. It's easier to stay at home with all that's familiar, even if it feels like such hard work all the time, at least my expectations are more realistic these days..and yes I long for their bedtime often so I can unravel a bit..

Granted ds is more able than some on here but

Go to the library thats a hollow laugh tried that and ds could not reach any of the books or activtes as was all set up for nt dc with tables and chairs and his does not fit under let aslone the stares as he communicates in his own fashion

erm wheelchairs and parks dont mix very well mind ds getting good aim when people get in his way or ignore him

funny enough ds does enjoy shopping arcades long as not to busy

oh and i have 3 more dc to entertain treat do things with to sowell as cooking cleaning therapies fighting the lea and the nhs in same breath and hey if im lucky get few hrs sleep at night so please done presume nnot that we dont want to do nothing with our dc its not lack of wanting to somethings we cant others were just to flaming knackered

ds2 HATES leaving the house, so most of the weekend is spent trying to get him out without screaming & tears!
If indoors he watches film after film after film
I can sometimes tempt him in to the garden & I chuck him on the trampoline.

TBH I have yet to find out what he really "likes" doing, he never asks to do anything.

Luckily he is actually very easy when at home so we tend not to do much at all (except MN )