For those of you staying home with your kiddos this summer...

What are you doing to keep yourselves busy? My problem is this... I am 28 weeks pregnant with #3, so I am really winding down quickly, but we are going STIR CRAZY in the house! These are the things we are doing during the day:

-eating meals together
-taking short walks
-going to a water park (the kind that sprays of water out of the ground..for toddlers/preschoolers)
-Occasional playdates
-playing in our playroom
-would love to go to the zoo, children's museum, but I'm not sure I have the energy for it!
-Pull out the babypool and sandbox on nice days

Also, what do you do when you are at home?
We have a nice playroom, but I feel like we spend an eternity in there because the rest of the house is not completely babyproofed and I have to have a lot of energy to keep up with them outside of the playroom......


Any new thoughts or ideas? I just want to avoid feeling stagnant at home. I also feel bad that they are not getting much stimulation because of my energy level this summer... just want to have a fun, successful summer with them.

thanks!

 

When my twins were your twins age I had a newborn. So I totally understand the lack of energy!!
We also have a playroom and my kids still play in it every morning for at least 2-3 hours. I've found that if at least once a month I clean it out and switch out toys they LOVE it! That really keeps them busy and it gave me a chance to take care of the new baby. Them playing alone is sooo good for them so don't feel guilty about giving them alone time in a babyproofed playroom.

The only other thing I can recommend is trying to find local Farmers Markets or festivals, my kids love those and just being outside really wore them out.

 

Paul's staying home with the kiddos this summer. I'll have to ask him if he's started thinking about these things yet. I'd guess probably not, but maybe he'll surprise me.

 

I'm a SAHM and always looking for ways to keep my kiddies entertained so I'll be watching this thread for ideas too! Here are some of the things I plan on doing:

-Letting them finger/body paint with pudding, obviously an outside game. We haven't tried this yet as it hasn't really been warm enough.
-All my kids love water so I'll bring some of their "inside" toys outside and a couple of tubs of water and let them splash/play and the novelty of having inside toys outside (like Danniks plastic dinosaurs, their Little People, etc) keeps them entertained.
-I also got a second hand play kitchen, accessories and food for the deck and this has been a big hit. If you make your outside play area fun then you can sit and relax and they can play .
-I've also discovered that all 3 of them like Playdough so this is something we can all do together when it's not nice enough to be outside.

I hope this helps!

 

You are pregnant. You can't feel too bad about them playing independently. Plus I really think your list of things to do is quite good.

So I'll admit it. I'm a lazy girl. I'm not pregnant, but have adapted to not having to move all the time. So here's what I've figured out to do when I'm not motivated to be standing or moving all the time.

I echo a PP- we separated their toys into 3 bins. Rotate weekly and you'll be amazed how happy they are!

Read, read, read. Reading to them is SO good for them and it's cozy for you (We do this every day multiple times- I get books about once a month at Goodwill for .50 cents and have a ton of them!)

Put on some music and teach them to dance. I taught mine the robot this month. Again, I was sitting down!

Sing songs. I sing 'Old Mac Donald' to mine with every imaginable animal on the planet. They love 'The Wheels on the Bus', too.

The park- I'm teaching them to stay on the woodchips. Our park is not enclosed, but there is a concrete lip which is the end of the woodchips. If they leave the woodchips, they immediately go into the stroller. Since we've been going they've gotten proficient at sliding down the slide. I predict in a month I'll be able to sit as necessary at the park.

Art. We've started with crayons. The best part is we usually do it in their highchairs- you could sit between them at a table.

Lastly, I've gotten mine hooked on Elmo. So today they watched a video I cleaned 2 bathrooms and sat down for 20 minutes.

 

Love love love these ideas! Thank you! I can add some things to my list! hoping everyone will keep the ideas coming!

 

I've been thinking of you yesterday and a few more popped into my head.

Bubbles. Don't buy the cheap ones, buy the good ones. Gazillion bubbles. What's even better is to get a bubble maker, but we don't have one yet, so if they are fussy and I have to go somewhere, I leave them for a babysitter as a distraction. But you could certainly rest and blow bubbles.

Blanket peek-a-boo. We keep a blanket folded on our couch. Ours love to have 1 go underneath it (can be with Mommy) and the other one 'discovers' him. I usually do "Where's Sebastian?".... "THERE he is!" I think mine could play this for days. & I did it sitting down yesterday.

 

I just got a bubble blower thingy (battery operated) and it's AWESOME...no more getting lightheaded blowing bubbles!!! All the kids love it...this is a great idea for you especially since when I was preggers I would get winded just walking to get the phone and would likely have passed out trying to blow bubbles .

 

I am a huge scheduler, so when I was home with my girls in the summer I actually wrote down a schedule and followed it so I wouldn't drive myself crazy. It hasn't really changed much from year to year and even this year I have a schedule all laid out for us. It pretty much is breakfast, followed by outside time (about an hour or two depending on heat) where we would play in the sandbox, swing, work in the garden or flowerbed, etc., then snack (or naptime), followed by creative/educational stuff (at that age we would do flash cards, read, learn sign language, sing songs, learn alphabet, learn sounds, age appropriate school type stuff), lunch, naptime, movie (or small snack). A couple of days a week I would try to take them to the park or swimming or something away from home.

 

We have a small slide and climber/cube that they play on for hours. Best $20 I ever spent. Right now the weather is terrible so its parked in my family room, but will go outside eventually. It saves me having to run after them at the playground.

-I plan to fill up an old rubbermaid tote with water and let them use that as a water table, (I'm too cheap to buy one )
- Playdough is so messy right now I almost think that is best used outside
-crayons are good for a few minutes of fun, but the attention span isn't there yet. The actually have more fun drawing on those magnestic boards that you erase. No mess that way too and no crayons on the clothes.
-I had a bunch of those plastic eggs left from easter and I send them outside with their sand buckets to do an egg hunt, they seem to love this.