What do you do with your kids all day?
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What do you do with your kids all day?
| Fri, 09-30-2005 - 2:06pm |
How does your daily schedule go? Do you plan a different activity each day? Just let your kids free play all day? How much tv? Do you really limit it? Do you watch tv with them? If you do spend all day with your kids, when/how do you get your houshold stuff done?

I dont really have a schedule set in stone. I have dd watch tv while I make breakfast and clean up. We usually have at least 1 outdoor excursion a day, weather permitting. She has quiet time in the day before nap time as well, she usually colors or "reads" her books, then sleeps for about an hour. While she's sleeping, I do as much tidying up as I can, somedays it doesnt amount to much lol.
I dont watch tv with her, as in sit down with her, but she only watchs the kids channel, and I can hear what shes watching, so I'm not worried about the content. its shows like Dora, Bear, ect. Somedays she turms the tv off on her own, and just wants to play with her toys. I give her a few options of things to do (coloring, playdough, ect) and follow her lead on what she feels like doing. I guess when she gets a little older we'll have to restructure our days, but for now, it works for us.
Lesley
I wake up about 6:30 and have both kids up by 7:30.
Dal;ton and I eat around 8 after Andrew goes to school.
Then at 9am-10am Dalton watches Tickle U, since he loves it so much.
After that we play until around 11am. Eat lunch and then he takes a nap around 12pm.
At around 2:30 pm we go to get Andrew at school and the rest of the day varies.
There are some days when I things planned out. I only have one child so it is easy sometimes for me to plan. SInce she is very active I try to do something with her in the morning...like go to the park and we joined a mom and tot class one day a week. She does watch TV. However it turns to be more background noise than anything else. She will play and run around and then sit for moment and check out what is on. There are times that she will sit and watch a full episode of something she likes but other than that not too much.
Well as far as getting things done around the house. There are times that I am able to clean when she is awake. Basically I just do what I can and sometimes things don't get done. I know that this probably is not helping. But there is only so much one person can do in a day. Try to remember that and take care of yourself. As the saying goes...if momma ain't happy nobody is happy.
Good Luck!!!
Jacob wakes up usually between 8:30 and 9:30. He has his milk and lays down to watch PBS. I usually lay down w/him, since I am just waking up too. ;-) After about 30 minutes he gets up and plays a little, w/the tv on and will glance at it from time to time. I usually play w/him or clean up the kitchen to get breakfast ready. A little while later I will feed him, usually bananas, since he just had his milk. We kinda go back and forth from watching tv to playing, and me cleaning up or feeding him(he's a grazer) or changing his diapers. Then he gets lunch around noon or so and takes a nap after that. He can sleep anywhere from 30 min to 3 hours so I try to get whatever I can done during that time. When he wakes up he usually wants some more milk and sometimes we run an errand, but usually just play some more, watch tv, veg out on the floor and wait for dinner time and daddy to come home! I know it sounds kinda boring on paper but really I love it and it goes by so fast. And now that the weather is cooling off, we will be playing more outside and taking walks and going to more places. This past Summer was unbearably HOT! (I'm in Texas) So it was either burn up going places or cool off inside in front of the tv! I chose the latter!
Jenny & Jacob(7/28/04)
I put dd in the playpen to watch cartoons or play with toys after breakfast (usually she is looking at books these days) while I get hair dried, brush teeth, etc. 99% of the time, they don't watch more than an hour of cartoons all day. Included in that is a video for dd while I cook dinner. She tends to not even watch that much and ends up looking at her books, unless it's a Baby Einstein video. They LOVE those. As far as watching with them, I sometimes will because I love to see them laughing and talking about what they are watching.
When the weather is nice, I make a huge effort to take them for a walk every day, either morning or after dinner. After dinner, the three of us play together until dd goes to bed and then sometimes I play with ds again or if dh is home, he will play with him. Ds is really good about keeping himself occupied which is easy to take advantage of, but I try not to; esp. since he is at preschool twice a week and with dd now, I don't get as much one on one time with him. I do not ""plan" specific activities each day. I sometimes try to keep certain things in mind for the next day that we had not done in a while, like coloring or playdough. Ds is into building things every day so I try to throw something else into the mix like what I mentioned. Dd is such a busybody that I can't keep her down to do any one thing for long so I let her go from one thing to the next and if I see her stop and show interest in something, like a book or the Little People garage, I'll rush over and do it with her. She won't sit in my lap for more than a min. or so, but she is starting to settle down some. I'm working on talking with her (naming things and getting her to say them.) With ds we are practicing sharing with dd and just encouraging him to play with her. That usually entails chasing each other, playing the toy piano together, or him showing her how to do something. They like to make each other laugh. Sorry this is so long. I did not mean it to be. Hope this gives you some helpful info.
Andrea