u/DadToADuo

Realising we are stuck in an activity rut.

To stop the 4-year-old going feral on Saturdays without his nursery structure, we use a routine board to break down the day so he knows exactly what's happening.

The problem is, I have a huge stack of activity cards to choose from, but I just keep lazily slapping the exact same activities on the board - park, library, slightly bigger park, or the zoo. Ten-pin bowling is a firm favourite, but dragging him past the arcade costs a fortune!

What is your go-to weekend activity that actually burns off toddler energy but doesn’t drain the wallet?

EDIT: EOD UPDATE

Big thank you to everyone who took the time to share ideas today - I've noted down so many of these hacks!

We actually had a surprisingly good day. We tried to get a solid walk in this morning, but got caught out by the rain and had to retreat indoors.

A lot of you were talking about the encouraging independent play. My fiancée actually designed a set of Activity Cards a little while ago for this exact reason. So we pulled them out of the play drawer and made a real point of encouraging him to use them today. He built the tallest tower he could all by myself using his building blocks and a bridge for all his teddies to cross!

But the absolute cherry on the cake? Mid-afternoon, Gran called and asked if the 4-year-old wanted to come over for a sleepover.

So tonight, it is just us and the 7-month-old and it honestly feels like a date night!

I’ve got a 4-year-old and a 7-month-old, so from about 5am onwards, the house is just loud.

I really don't want to be the default angry, shouting dad when things get chaotic but it's hard sometimes...

I keep seeing all this advice online about "co-regulation". The idea is that you have to be the calm anchor for your kid's storm because they can't calm themselves down.

In theory, it sounds great. In practice, when my 4yo is having an absolute meltdown over something or other, and I’m running on a couple hours of broken sleep, every instinct I have tells me to just to stop the noise.

Sitting on the floor trying to lend him my "calm" feels physically impossible when I am burnt out.

For the guys who actually manage to keep their cool - what does this look like for you in the moment? Do you have an internal monologue or a physical trick to stop yourself from just snapping and shouting over the noise?

We tried the white noise machines, lullabies, heartbeat sounds - all the standards but the one that works (almost) every time is "I Had Some Help" by Post Malone!

I have no idea if it's the temp, baseline, or what but if it works it works! I'll hate to see my Spotify wrapped at the end of the year!

Anyone else have some mandatory sleep tracks?