Wild Child Advice Needed

[SweetPea3200]

Hello All,

I've never posted in this section before as I'm usually focused on the TTC forums. My son is 18 months old and can be very accurately described as a wild child. He's extremely energetic and interacts with the world through touching and tasting (yuk!). He's known to dance, run, jump, and occasionally hit and bite (most just mummy and daddy). I'm looking for ideas on things to wear him out and keep him occupied! It's winter here right now and outside is pretty gross. He has a habit of trying to eat the dirty snow when we go out for long. So I'm mostly looking for indoor ideas. He's not the best at following directions yet and doesn't talk much. Any ideas would be really appreciated!

 

[Teri7489]

Have you got room for the mini indoor chutes? Or the indoor pop up tunnels and tents? maybe even cardboard box house or car things?

We build dens with sofs cushions, blankets and teddies which exhausts my kids trying to climb in, out and over them. We also do things like making silly musical toys (rice in a bottle that they have to shake, glitter and glue in warm water in a bottle to watch it move) it's entertaining but also tires them out too. My son is 18 months old and I swear I have aged 10 years since he was born, even put a post on here about being boys being so exhausting! My daughter isn't too bad thankfully x

 

[icklemonster]

Stalking! My son is 100 times more tiring than my daughter ever was. He has no fear, my heart is in my mouth the entire time watching him charge around, climb, precariously balance on things, fall off! My daughter is the polar opposite and over cautious, obedient, independent and well behaved. I didn't realise how lucky I was until I had crazy whirlwind clingy DS! Would love some ideas for tiring him out. We go to softplays and he LOVES it but he is 13.5kg already and so I have to lift him up some sections and run round with him and it feels like an army assault course for Mummy haha

 

[2have4kids]

We have local gyms that we visit with our 17 month old. Gymboree has music classes and a gym with both organized and free play activities. The other one is called treehouse with a toddler ball pit, slides, small cars, horses etc to ride, space to run and have freeplay. We also enrolled her in swim classes and we regularly take her to the pool (one of us as the other has to stay home with the twins). We always go to these things on the half price days or twoonie ($2) times for the last hour or so to save money as this sort of thing can get expensive.
We also do outside walks at least once/day even if only a few blocks with her in a stroller. It's brown and bloody cold here in Canada right now but I find she sleeps better if she's been outside.

 

[SweetPea3200]

I wish I had all that amazing stuff in my town! We do have swimming lessons twice a week which is amazing. I love hearing from moms who have experienced both calm and crazy kids, gives me hope for if we have another! I'm glad I'm not the only one dealing with an exhausting toddler. We do have a pop-up tunnel thing and even an indoor trampoline! I just wish I could find something to occupy him for 20 minutes while I make supper. Probably not going to happen any time soon. He doesn't even glace at the TV when it's on.

 

[erinprime]

We have an indoor slide and the Radio Flyer - Flyer 500 ride. They both get a lot of use during the winter. Before the playroom became the new baby's room, we had a swingset swing bolted to the ceiling. Sometimes I make obstacle coarses through the the whole house with painters tape. When my daughter was younger, I used to color Cool Whip with food coloring and we would finger paint with it on her high chair tray. Whenever there is fresh snow I fill a bin up with it and we play with the snow inside (my kid hates being out in the cold). We go to The Little Gym for class once a week. My daughter is very much NOT a wild child so that's all I got.