I got an email from a reader today, asking what sort of things our toddler does with his time, particularly since we don’t have a TV. I thought I’d share some of what we do, in case other readers are looking for ways to occupy a small child without TV or expensive toys.
I’m very lucky in that my husband and both work from home. When our son was born, I cut back to only about three or four hours of work for our business each day – the rest of my time is devoted to our son and our household. My husband has his office set up in our basement, and we keep the stairs blocked off so that our son stays on the main level with me during the day. We have childproofed the kitchen/living room/dining room area, and put childproof covers on the doorknobs leading into the other rooms. That way he’s always in the same area with me during the day. When I go outside to water the garden or hang up laundry, he goes with me, and entertains himself by playing in the dirt, gathering stones, stacking flower pots… we have a 3/4 acre backyard, so there’s always plenty for him to do out there.
In the house, we keep it pretty simple, which means he gets ample time to use his imagination. He loves to play with my pots and pans. He will entertain himself for long stretches to time by taking every pan and lid out of the cupboard, and carrying them one by one into the living room, where he sets them on the coffee table. Then he gathers whatever containers he can find, and pretends to pour or shake “ingredients” into the pans. Then he gets some utensils (I let him have save ones like spatulas and wooden spoons) and stirs his imaginary soup. I guess he’s spent plenty of time watching me cook!
We have a fairly large collection of board books, thanks to my friends at the library where I used to work (they had a book shower for me before our son was born). He likes to climb up into the recliner and “read” his books. He’s always thrilled if we join him, but he’s also happy to just flip the pages and look at the pictures.
Every day, unless the weather is really horrendous, I take our son and our dog for a walk, usually for about an hour. Sometimes we use the stroller, sometimes the Moby Wrap. Our son loves to point out cars and dogs and airplanes – pretty much anything that moves. We also go to the playground if the weather is nice.
We keep a box of toys in the living room, and he likes to dump them out and make up games to play. They are all simple toys, mostly gifts from his grandparents, and a few wooden toys that we’ve picked up at thrift stores. We also made a play area down in the basement in my husband’s office, using one of those super long sectional baby gate/cage things (my husband found it in a dumpster, and it’s in perfect shape). We keep another box of toys down there, and in the evenings while I do yoga, my husband takes our son down to his play area in the basement, and they hang out together. They are both happy for long periods of time just tossing a ball back and forth, so they do that a lot.
We keep a third box of naptime toys in our son’s room, in the closet. Every day, when I put him down for his nap, I put the naptime toys in the crib with him. He plays with them for a few minutes before he falls asleep. Since we started this trick a few months ago, we haven’t had any fuss at all during naptime (he used to cry or need to be nursed to sleep for his nap). The naptime toys are just toys that I gathered up from his other boxes – nothing special, but because he doesn’t see them all day, he’s interested in them when he does see them.
Our son has never watched TV. We had one until he was about 11 months old, but we never turned it on while he was awake, so as far as he knew, it was just a black box. Now that we don’t have one at all, his days are automatically taken up with other things. He’s never seen commercials, so there’s no desire on his part to have any new toys or gizmos. Nothing we have is fancy, but our son is happy pretty much all of the time. Thus, we’re going on the “if it ain’t broke…” theory.
We don’t have our son enrolled in any sort of programs or structured activities. We go to the library, but I haven’t enrolled him in story time yet, mainly because we go at different times every week, whenever I can fit it in around the rest of my schedule. We see other kids at the playground, and I get together every now and then with a friend who has a toddler, for a playdate. My honest opinion is that kids just need love, lots of laughter, toys that let them use their imagination (stuff from the recycle bin works just fine), and a secure environment. I’m not a fan of structured activities for preschool age kids. I also like to keep our life as low-stress as possible, and not trying to juggle a bunch of outside commitments for a toddler helps to keep it that way.
That’s our life with our son. It’s simple, very inexpensive (mostly free), low-stress, and lots of fun. I often find myself on the floor, driving “cars” (blocks) around the carpet, making vroom-vroom sounds, and realizing that nothing could make me or my son any happier.
Claire in CA, USA says
Though I know you’re not looking for approval of your parenting, I just wanted to say that I think you are absolutely doing the best thing for your son by eliminating tv from his life. I didn’t believe in structured play time when my kids were little, and they watched very little tv. We finally gave up watching tv altogether, though we have it to watch movies. The kids are now teens, and they don’t depend on tv for their entertainment like their friends do. I love it. :)
Neil says
Having had 3 children (oldest 14, youngest 4) I would say the things that most reliably occupy and amuse children are the timesless ones like books, paper, crayons, crafts, and most importantly the attention of their parents.
Well done on not having a television. Unfortunately I’ve not managed it!
Jenny says
Great post…I made a mental bookmark for future use. :-)
Do you still co-sleep? Or did you ever co-sleep? I can’t remember.
FrugalBabe says
Jenny,
Our son slept in our bed until he was about six months old. By that time, he had been sleeping through the night for a few months, and I was finding that it was waking him up when we would get up to go to the bathroom. So we moved him to his crib, and he’s done really well with it. He normally sleeps until about 8am, but about once every week or two, he wakes up in the middle of the night. When that happens, he usually spends the rest of the night in our bed, as I’m able to nurse him back to sleep and fall back asleep myself at the same time. We all wake up feeling well rested, so I guess it works.
GC says
my husband has made a promise that I think he will forget–if we have any children we will give up our tv.
Kelly says
Thanks FB, this is exactly what I was looking for.
Great post!
julie says
that is just awesome….I’m not a big fan of structured activities for little little ones either…………..
Kay says
Its wonderful to read about your son’s everyday activities and how unstructured it is. We’re trying to move away from tv and computer and your post is very helpful. Thanks FB!
I’ve been out of country for 3 months now but I’ve managed to catch up your posts through email subscriptions though I couldn’t leave any comments.
VM says
I love the idea of a nap toy box that is full of toys he sees less often. Brilliant. I’m making one tomorrow!
BigNan says
FrugaBabe: Our children were also raised without television. When our children were small (they are all grown up now) most of their toys came from grandparents, yard sales, or were home made by my husband and myself (rag dolls, wooden fish with wheels, doll house, rocking chair, etc.) Every month we would take some items out of the toy corner and put them in boxes on a high shelf. After the first month there was always a box on the shelf with toys that had been out of circulation for a while. When the children got to open that box, it was like having new toys all over again, just by swopping inventory.
Aurie says
FB, are you considering homeschooling at some point in the future? This post reminds me of how my dad attempted to raise my little brothers. I like your approach for the mere fact that the habits that are already being fostered will go such a long way with the cognitive, spatial, and creative abilities of the little one.
Although I grew up with a TV, it was certainly not a central part of my upbringing. I remember being told that I did of what you described when I was young. Having an avid imagination is so important for children and it seems to be lost in translation in our ever advancing technologically-centric culture of the West.
FrugalBabe says
Aurie,
Although we practice a lot of the same parenting styles as homeschooling parents (homebirth, no vaccinations, no TV, lots of unstructured playtime in early childhood, etc.), we do plan to send our son to public school. My husband and I both feel that a school setting – combined with our own parenting style – is the best way to prepare our son for the “real world”. A school environment teaches children that they are not the center of the universe, that they must learn to get along with people who are different from themselves, that will have teachers they love and teachers they don’t like so much, but that’s life. As adults, we have to get along with a wide variety of people, earn a living, work when we might feel like playing, and respect authority (while we believe it’s important to question authority, it’s still important to do so within the bounds of basic rules). My husband and I believe that these skills are best taught by experience, and we feel that the public school system is a good place to learn them.
In addition, we’re atheists, so we have no religious motivation for homeschooling.
I do keep an open mind though, and never say never. For now though, we’re fully committed to sending our son to public school.
Cass says
This is very similar to how my husband and I raise our 18 month old, but I feel that in some way you’ve taken it to the next level. (For example, we have quite a few light up plastic toys which we were given that I haven’t had the heart to get rid of yet because he loves them so much. We also are without cable or satelllite tv, but play quite a few video games at night which he watches. Hmm.) Like the other commenters, I *love* the idea of having a naptime toy box, as well as a cordoned off area downstairs. He’s having a really hard time transitioning to his crib from our bed (I also just weaned him a month ago), so the naptime toy box will hopefully help.
I’ve burned through almost all of your posts recently and am looking forward to more. Keep up the fantastic work!
FrugalBabe says
Thanks Cass! Just to clarify, our son has several toys that light up, sing songs, and are made of plastic :) Most of them were gifts, but a few were things he stumbled upon while we were browsing in thrift stores. He loves them, and that’s fine with us. His favorite things are “toys” that he finds in the kitchen cabinets, books, and wooden puzzles, but he’s also a big fan of a plastic ride-on train that sings all sorts of songs while he rides along.