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Don’t expect every set-up to work every time.
Always be close at hand to keep an eye on your child, but try not to become involved in the activity – let them play independently.
Always check that the objects used for the set-ups are not choking hazards. This is especially important for the under-threes.
Older children might respond well to a timed activity, e.g. ‘when the timer goes off, Daddy will be finished and we can play something together’.
Be aware of your little one’s go-to type of play; if they’re mad on construction or imaginative play, for example, you can rely more on 10-second set-ups that spark playful activity in that direction.
Acknowledge to your child that they’ve allowed you to get your job done, if you made them aware that this was the purpose of this independent play time.
When I asked parents on Facebook what things their little ones seemed to resent them doing or just plain didn’t allow them to do without them wrapped around their legs, or equivalent, making phone calls or going to the toilet seemed to be most problematic. But there were numerous other everyday activities mentioned too, and some of these are listed below:
Grown-up activities, when children might need to ‘wait’:
Drying hair
Eating
Taking a shower
Shaving
Cleaning teeth
Daily stretches, exercises or yoga practice
Making a phone call
Going to the toilet
Getting dressed
Sitting down
Making a cup of tea
Making a sandwich/cooking
Fixing something
Changing a light bulb
Taking out the rubbish
Opening the mail
Clearing up after a meal
Paying bills
Making appointments
Listening to the weather or traffic news on the radio
Helping other children
Feeding a baby
Having a conversation with another adult
Out and about:
Waiting in a queue
Interaction at the counter in a shop, at the bank or post office
Having a (brief) business meeting
A doctor’s appointment
A dentist appointment
So, here are lots of examples of 10-second set-ups for those instances when you need your child to be calmly, happily and busily playing independently. This way to play is a quick-fix solution that will take 10 seconds or less to explain to your child. Some 10-second setups do need to be prepped in advance, but this extra work will pay dividends when you’re feeling the pressure and can’t think of anything to tempt your little one to play on their own.
Each suggestion given here will help to promote independent play, encouraging toddlers and preschoolers not only to wait, but to learn that waiting can be fun. This is in no way a finite list, of course – I’m sure you’ll discover different set-ups that work a treat for your little one as you start to introduce them into your daily play.
Personal care
In the bathroom
When my two were very small, I remember taking their baby-bouncer chair into the bathroom while I took a shower. If I timed it right, the whole experience was wonderfully sensorial and they would happily sit and bounce and look around, just enjoying the warmth, sights and sounds of my shower-time.
However, such simple distractions will not be enough to capture your child’s attention as they become toddlers and preschoolers. If your child finds it difficult to wait while you have a shower, i.e. they are unable to choose something – and stay with something – to do that doesn’t need you, try one or two of these 10-second set-ups to help them get into their flow:
Shaving foam art: Here’s one that is especially good for dads. One blob of shaving foam put onto a lid of an ice-cream tub or similar goes a long way and will provide a wonderful, sensory substance for your little one to enjoy while you shave. If they need more help with how to play with it, challenge them to make as many different patterns on the lid as they can, using their fingers to move the foam around.
Aquamat doodle-time: If they need encouragement to play with the Aquamat, challenge them to cover the whole thing with patterns and pictures for you to see when you step out of the shower.
Bathroom busy bags: This needs some prep in advance. Fill a couple of small tote bags, make-up bags or inexpensive pencil cases with different things. Produce them only when you need to and change their contents every now and again. The surprise of a new bag is usually a big hit. In these bags you could put:
Foam bath-time letters or shapes. A wet sponge in a small bowl will provide enough moisture to make the letters cling to any tiled or porcelain bathroom surface.
Hair styling stuff. Bag up a few big clips, a soft brush, some soft hair scrunchies and a safety-mirror tile.
Empty bottles and big lids to match up and twist on. Check the lids are not so small that they pose a choking hazard.
Plastic stickle bricks/Duplo or Octons. If your child needs a little help to find their flow with these, challenge them to make something tall or funny or beautiful by the time you’re out of the shower.
Small figurines’ bath time. Make up a simple kit with, say, a small plastic bowl plus soap plus a small sponge and a flannel, for a mini let’s-pretend bath time. If you put a little water in the bowl, place a towel underneath to prevent slips.
Sponge construction shapes. Cut up some colourful new sponges into shapes and bricks for some brilliant, and quiet, bathroom-themed building.
Waterproof craft foam cut into sections of road (you can also buy these pre-made) and a selection of small toy vehicles for some road building, and zooming and racing car action.
A selection of waterproof bath books.
Lots of mini-pom-poms or the foam ‘peanuts’ you get as box packaging and a small, empty, dry water bottle. Challenge your little one to fill the bottle with pom-poms by the time you have finished in the shower. You can use the pom-poms or packing peanuts again and again, of course.
A message-in-a-bottle kit – you need a small, empty, dry water bottle, strips of paper and a pencil. Challenge your little one to ‘write’ you messages on the strips of paper and post them in the water bottle. See how many different messages they can make before you step out of the shower or finish brushing your teeth.
Let’s pretend wash bag – What you’ll need to do beforehand: Make up a special wash bag for them to investigate. It’s great if it has lots of pockets. It should look like a grown-up’s version, but with kid-friendly contents; a hand mirror, brush, comb, small wash cloth, mini water sprayer, some empty cream bottles, a nail buffer and emery board, cotton wool pads, a shower cap, a hair roller, a hair scrunchie, and the like.
Drying your hair
Offer your child a harmonica or other noisy musical toy to play on while you use the hair dryer. Let them know they can play as loudly as they like, in the same room as you, only while you are drying your hair. The noise – sorry – music, will get totally drowned out by your hair dryer and is the best way to really appreciate it, I think.
Getting dressed
Getting ready for the day when you have babies and very young children can often be a rather snatch-and-grab affair. But if you have your little one with you in the room you could try to take the time pressure off yourself by letting them discover a game while they wait for you to get dressed. Try one or two of these 10-second set-ups, if they aren’t able to find something to do themselves, to help them find their flow through calm play:
Dressing teddy: Offer some play silks or scarves plus a teddy they can dress up while you are doing your thing.
Dressing skills bags: These are good opportunities for young children to practise their own dressing skills without feeling under pressure to get ready quickly because of time constraints. What you’ll need to do beforehand: cut out hand-sized shapes in thin card or craft foam and punch holes round the edge. Fill a bag with these lacing cards plus a few shoelaces or yarn – sticky-tape the end to prevent fraying. Fill another with short and long strips of Velcro or zips, and another with big buttons to post into a plastic tub with a slit cut to size in the lid.
Button-up: I remember a wonderful book made by my sister, for my little sister, of felt – each page had some kind of ‘getting-dressed’ skill to try – like a picture of a shoe with real laces, and a picture of Humpty Dumpty with a real belt with a buckle. The idea below is a little less ambitious, but should capture the attention of your child just as well. What you’ll need to do beforehand: sew about ten colourful large buttons onto a piece of felt or non-fraying fabric just as you like. Then cut out shapes from felt – hearts, triangles, circles for example, and cut a slit through each to make a button hole. The shapes can be attached and removed again and again by your little one – great buttoning practice.
Junk-jewellery box discovery: Have a special-looking jewellery box for your little one to explore. Make sure they know that it’s a real treat to be allowed to look at your special things. Do keep all expensive and delicate stuff out of reach obviously – we’re talking plastic bangles and chunky beaded necklaces here.
Make-a-necklace kit:What you’ll need to do beforehand: into a shoebox or basket put a couple of handfuls of coloured pasta tubes, big chunky beads or cut-up pieces of drinking straws along with a shoe lace or yarn. Wrap a little sticky tape around one end to stop it fraying and tie a big knot at the other end. This kit will keep your little one independently busy, threading and necklace-making while you dress. Do check any beads used are not so small as to pose a choking hazard.
A special bag of books about getting dressed and clothes: Little ones feel very special lying on a grown-up’s bed, and will really enjoying looking at a few picture books in such a luxurious setting.
Some of our favourite books about getting dressed are:
Thomas Goes Out– Gunilla Wolde
Bare Bear– Miriam Moss and Mary McQuillan
The Emperor’s New Clothes – Hans Christian Andersen
The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
The Smartest Giant in Town– Julia Donaldson
Magnetic dress-up: Dig out those magnetic shapes plus a board – or a metal baking sheet works well. If the magnets have a clothing theme, all the better.
Puppet costumes:What you’ll need to do beforehand: gather a few finger puppets and some small fabric squares. Fold the fabric squares in half and make a small slit in the middle of each, big enough for the puppet’s head to be pushed through. This should start a spot of dramatic puppet play with the chance to change the characters’ costumes.
Exercising with a toddler-in-tow
Whether you are a fitness fanatic, an occasional runner, play competitive sport in a team, love dancing, cycling or swimming, there is no doubt that having small children will have had an impact on the amount of time available to exercise, and your attitude towards it. Whether you’re desperate to continue, get back to it, or start a new regime, you of course have to take into consideration what happens to your little one while you exercise. For some, it’s a matter of dropping them off at the gym’s crèche, or getting childcare while your team plays a match or you go for a run; for others it’s about waiting till the little one is napping, or in bed at night.
For many parents and carers, incorporating exercise into playing with their child is a good way to go. You can read more about ideas for this way to play in the chapter Stay and Play (#litres_trial_promo), but if you want to try to get your daily or weekly fix of exercise when you have your child with you, but not necessarily joining in with you, your little one needs to learn to wait while you exercise. With a 10-second set-up or two, you should find they get used to playing independently while you do your thing.
Exercising at home
If you exercise at home – say, doing yoga, Pilates, or dance, for example – and your children are swirling round your legs like puppies but are adamant they don’t want to join in, here are a few 10-second set-ups to distract and happily occupy them until you’ve finished your practice:
Plastic bubble-wrap popping challenge: Few young children can resist the lure of bubble-wrap. Small pieces can be set out like puddles – for leaping and jumping practice; make sure your little one has bare feet and the bubble-wrap is on a non-slip surface or secured to the floor with a little masking tape to keep the fun safe. Larger lengths can be used for marching, crawling, running and rolling practice. The challenge, if required, could be to see if they can pop every single air pocket before you’re finished with your exercise.
Target practice: Challenge your child to scrunch pieces of scrap or newspaper into balls – they’ll need to make at least ten – and then throw them, aiming into an empty waste-paper basket. Of course, the challenge can be made harder by standing further from the target.
Skittles: Sealed plastic bottles, with a little water in them for a bit of weight, make great skittles. Raid your recycling for at least three, and challenge your little one to see how many times they can knock them over and set them up before you’re finished. A small soft sponge ball or beanbag can be the projectile.
Walk the line: Make a couple of masking (painters’) tape lines – one straight, one zigzag, say – on the floor, away from where you’re exercising. That should start up some tight-rope walking, and who knows what else; toys and cars may also become involved. Just let them go with their flow – and you’ll have the space to finish those stretches.
Tracks and runs: If you have a toy train track or a marble run that your little one can make independently, now’s a good time to challenge them to see what they can make by the time you’ve finished your exercise; they’ll love showing you their design when you’re done.
Soft-toy Olympics: While you exercise, challenge your child to find out which of their soft toys is best at running, jumping, rolling, skating and the like, with an athletic competition. Medals could be given at the end – maybe you’ll get one too, for being so good at your particular exercise.
Books about sport or physical activity: Your child may relish a quiet few minutes near you, looking at stories about sport
and exertion, while you finish yours. A couple of our favourite picture books with a sporting theme are:
Ambrose goes for Gold – Tor Freeman
The Tortoise and the Hare – an Aesop fable
Tunnel-time: These cheerfully coloured pop-up tunnels are a good investment – crawling babies love them and toddlers and preschoolers are still drawn to their enclosed, colourful space. They’ll slither and crawl through it again and again, but might also use it as a camp, or involve other toys. Its sudden appearance could intrigue your little one for at least the time you need to exercise, and probably longer.
Toys play Twister: If you have the game Twister (which I highly recommend getting) you can set it out for your little one with a few soft toys as the contestants. Your child can be in charge of the spinner and move the toys to the correct colour spots on the play-mat. They’ll make up the rest of the rules as they go along.
Sustenance
Whether we want to make a cup of tea or have a quick sandwich, finding time for our own sustenance is often a huge challenge for parents of the under-fives. One of my friends told me how she would surreptitiously eat most of her meals and snacks standing in her kitchen, facing away from her kids while they were in their high chairs. She had to hide what she was eating because they would always abandon whatever they were doing, even if it was having something identical, in favour of her food. Another friend’s two-year-old had a serious obsession with kettles for a while; he desperately wanted to open and close the lid and put the kettle on its stand over and over again if he ever got the faintest whiff of anyone wanting a cuppa. It was often easier to just not ever think about having a cup of tea. Some young children are very intrigued for a while with the process of food preparation and, as another mum told me, ‘sometimes, just sometimes, I’d rather they just let me get on with it.’
‘. . . very little ones grabbing at/climbing up your legs, or trying to get in the oven when you open it, or wanting to be carried so you have to do everything with one hand. Bigger little ones demanding food instantly when you are trying to cook it, “but Mum, I want something to eat NOW”! If you give in and do snacks then the cooked food doesn’t get eaten.’
A mum of two, trying to make lunch
Maybe the dream scenario, while food and drink is being prepared and partaken, is for your little one to be – as the French would have it – sage; a word I rather like. By this they mean that children, and very young children at that, are calm and self-controlled around food and at mealtimes – they certainly do not clamber to take your food, or food that’s destined for them but that is not ready yet, nor do they ask for different food. The way in which French parents achieve these dream eating habits and table manners in lesenfants is, as you may have guessed, by setting strict rules; there is certainly no pandering to the potential fussy eaters out there. But I can totally see how the sage child, the calm and well-mannered child that waits patiently while food is being prepared, eats when and what they’re given, and allows their parents to do the same, might be something that makes this particular aspect of parenting easier. It’s how to achieve this, though, and that’s the tricky bit. Unless you’re French, of course.
If your child is finding it difficult at mealtimes – is not sage – and is exhibiting unwanted behaviour, then take a look at the chapter Sanity Savers (#litres_trial_promo), which might help. If, however, your child can’t find their flow of independent play while you prepare food or drink for yourself or them, try one or two of these 10-second set-ups to help them wait:
Play dough: This is a kitchen basic in my house. It’s such a wonderful way to get young children busy and concentrating at the kitchen table or on a plastic mat on the floor while the grown up cooks. There’s a recipe for homemade play dough (#litres_trial_promo) – and a batch will last for ages if you keep it in an airtight container. One of the best things about using play dough as a 10-second set-up is that it is so versatile – you can ring the changes in a flash, refreshing children’s interest by offering different things to use with it; from favourite figurines, shells and sticks and rubber stamps, to toy kitchen equipment like plastic cookie-cutters and rolling pins, cupcake cases, buttons and pipe cleaners. The only thing they mustn’t do is eat it.
Empty muffin tins and ice cube trays: These compartmentalised containers are irresistible to young children. Just add pom-poms, favourite mini figurines, toys or play dough and see how the play develops.
