Nothing seems to keep my 19 month old DS happy for more than 5 mins at a time. We normally go out to the park a lot but it's too cold at the moment and all the playgroups/classes we go to are closing down for Christmas. With all the activities I can think of, even the ones he enjoys, he gets frustrated so easily if he can't get things exactly as he wants them (eg. if car doesn't do exactly what he wants it to do) and starts yelling. Or he tries to eg. draw on the walls, I say no and eventually confiscate the pencils and he then screams and nothing will distract him. And he whines all the bloody time - whatever we are doing he wants to do something else.
So today we had nothing planned and it was hell. Among the activities I tried were:
- pretend cooking (stirring flour and water and pouring into another jug) (about 15 minutes but he kept getting annoyed with it)
- jumping off a chair onto a big pile of cushions/duvets (this was the best activity we got about 15-20 mins)
- drawing (about 2 mins before he started trying to draw on walls/floor and wouldn't draw on paper)
- cars (about 5 minutes before he got frustrated)
- playmobil (didn't want to play with it at all)
- reading (off and on throughout the day, he does quite enjoy this when in the mood
What do you do to keep your toddlers amused? I just get so bloody annoyed when I try everything and nothing keeps him happy. I ended up taking him to the library but even there he just wants to run around opening and closing doors and creating havoc so we can't stay there too long.
Please help me avoid a breakdown tomorrow!