I am SO bored with his toys

[*Jo*]

yep, so so so bored, Im sitting here with him now, he wants me to just sit here while he builds his alphabet train, you cant do anything else except hook them all up and then just move them around but its sooooo boring, all his toys are boring. I just sit there while he plays with them trying to think of what i can do to join in. Even car racing is boring, im dreading playtime with him cos all I do is sit there and watch him and sometimes thats all he wants which is even more frustrating because Ive got a million things running through my mind to be doing ie resettling Levi, cleaning the bottles so I dont run out, folding the washing cos we have run out of clean clothes adn Im too tired to do it when everyone is finally in bed.

All I hear is "Mummy come play" all the time and then its just so boring when I do. I dont have enough energy to even think of what activities we can do together. Its just no fun, if Im bored then surely he is too?

how do you keep things fresh?

[*Amy*]

Hi Jo, does he have toys that he doesn't play with? I move ds's toys around quite a bit. I change position of them in the room, or I out some out in the middle of the floor that we haven't played with in a while! I head a really good one though, someone on here, put dry rice in a baking tray and had their little one sit and play with their cars in the rice....could be messy but if at a table at least confined!

[*Jo*]

Yes he does have toys he doesn't play with that we pull out occasionally, in DVD the alphabet train was one of them! Lol and I was bored instantly.

I used to be so creative with him but (and here's where i sound like a 2.5 year old) he doesn't want to play with the stuff I want to play with. I suggest colouring in and it's a no, I don't mind coloring in and we could have some lovely quality time together, but he wants me to play with his boring toys and well I just end up sitting there feeling like a bad parent for not wanting to play with him

[deb]

Cups, a sink or counter, and a small amount of water or rice?

How about a cookie tray with shaving cream? Like this?

[deb]

Oh, for the million things that need to be done, what I started doing was setting a timer, maybe for 10 minutes. I'd play with Josie for that time and just play 100% without thinking about the other stuff on my mind because I knew that in 10 minutes I would be setting the timer for another 10 minutes (or 15 ) and doing them, involving her if possible, and then we'd play some more. Took a while to get into that rhythm, but it helped us make sure to get her Mommy Cup filled and get us some Quality Time while still leaving time for at least the important stuff like meals and laundry.

[nwmm]

Deb-how would you explain things when the timer when it went off?  I don't mind explaining some things like I need to cook dinner in 15 minutes or I need to switch the wash in 5 minutes. 

[deb]

"Mommy has a lot of things to do today, but the FIRST thing is playing with YOU! Just to make sure I have time to make lunch and supper and everything, I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes. When it goes beep beep, I'm going to take a little break set the timer again and do [chore A], and when it beeps again, I get to play with you some MORE!"

Said in bright cheerful sunshiny voice.

[nwmm]

Thank you!    right back at you of course 

[lilisuze]

could you collect up some stuff for a rhyme bag. Its my and ds fave game. We have cuddly and plastic toys that remind us of a song, like a duck for 5 little ducks, a boat for row row row etc and we take turns to pick one and sing the songs together. It takes up a good portion of play time because once the toys are out we can line them up, wash their faces, feed them picnic and pack them all away in their draw string bag .(which happens to be the dust cover from my radley! ) oh and we use the timer a lot too, normally to hold out before snack time!