For Stay at Home Moms..

I think it's really important for young children to learn to play by themselves/ entertain themselves. So even though I was in the same room I would let them play w/out me being directly involved (I would be folding laundry, paying bills,etc) for as long as they would.

Other than that I spend a TON of one on one time w/ my children, mostly reading, doing educational toys (shape puzzles, etc) coloring and now playing board games. I still sit and watch their PBS shows with them and talk about what is going on, etc. like I did w/ s. Street when they started watching it when they were 1.

I remember having my toddler mimick me a lot....All my kids as toddlers could sort the laundry by colors.

All my toddlers could tear lettuce leaves for salads. Sometimes a little too much tearing...but hey, they were happy to be on the counter next to mama and it was the only safe and productive kitchen activity I could think of....I would give them several lettuce leaves to tear and put into the salad spinner.

Then actual one on one focused time, not including diapering, potty training, bathing, feeding, driving to and from, I would probably say I spent an hour at the park or on the floor actually playing toys or reading.

Any additional time spent on the floor next to them was me pretending to play while I rested....For instance, I could lay on my stomach and told my son that my legs were roads for the cars or tracks for the trains...and I got a little massage out of it too.

I try to spend bits of time here or there through out the day. No set time, though. Usually my daughter is playing in whatever room I am working in so I can keep an eye on her, but we don't play together all day. I have always felt it's important for kids to learn to entertain themselves and it's proven to be beneficial to me. She has her times when she wants a hug and I never deny her affection when she needs it, but I will hug her and love on her and then tell her to go play. Some days I don't get anything done if she's teething or feeling unsure, other days she's super independent.
When I am preparing meals, she gets to watch Sesame Street or Barney or something like that to keep her preoccupied.
You just need to feel out what your child needs.

I don't put a timer on and say "okay, we've spent 1 hour together". So I don't know just how much time I spend with her. We play games, clean/pick up together and work on alphabet and numbers together.

I let her watch Sesame Street and Disney channel shows when I need to do things that she can't help with.

usually in 20 min spurts troughout the day seem to really work, her attention span is about that long, then we clean up and will move on to some household chores which she just loves, for now hahaha. then maybe a show or movie then kind of start the rotation over agian. We just started playing memory I am so waiting for the day when we can do board games I love board games. I might ask dh for the wii connect I think that might be fun she loves to dance move and shake.

I don't know the hours per se, but my 23-month-old usually demands much on-on-one play. If I'm doing something, I try and give her a task like handing me the spoons out of the dishwasher, or throwing shirts in the dryer.

I usually devote the mornings to her: I.E. playgroups, indoor playgrounds (it's cold here, too!), etc.

I'm much better at interacting with her out of the house as I have major cabin fever and live in the middle of nowhere!

DH is much different. He can interact with her on the floor and give her 110 percent attention.

An easier q for me to answer would be how much time do/did you spend AWAY from your toddlers?

Before age 3... 5-10 hours a week
After age 3... 15-20 hours a week

Some people have kids that can play by themselves for short increments of time, or who have siblings they play with. I had an extroverted only child. Not until age 8 could he go do something for 15 minutes on his own. Extroverts are a little misunderstood. Just like no parent would take a shy child and stick them in the middle of 50 screaming kids without expecting a major meltdown... no parent of an extrovert gets longer than a few minutes to themselves. it's JUST as stressful on an extrovert to be alone, as it is for an introvert to be thrust into a huge group of people.

1:1 playtime is hard to answer... because when you've got an extrovert... they do EVERYTHING with you. And for toddlers... nearly EVERYTHING is fun/playtime. How much time was I completely alone with my son (not at the park, or with friends/family, no husband home, zip nada zilch EXCEPT for the 2 of us? And in that time how much time did we do NOTHING except "play"? Lol.... no idea.

Pretty much all day is Mama and her time. She has toys all over the house and pretty much in every room so we play all day. If I am doing something like cleaning and she cant help for whatever reason I usually try to set her up with something and then go about my business in the hopes she will amuse herself for a bit but if not I will resort to TV for a bit if I need her to give me a few minutes to complete a task that she cant help with. Otherwise we are side by side all day long. I try to take her out in the mornings and then its home for lunch and then off to bed for a nap and in the afternoons we just float doing our thing together. I dont set aside a specific amount of time to just play time because we play all day basically

I was with my kids from the moment they woke up to the moment they went back to sleep at night. We did everything together. Folding laundry, vacuuming, dishes, cooking, dusting, you name it. They didn't always do it right and I had to do things over again, but it didn't matter, we did it together. Did we have a lot of "sit on the floor and play" with the blocks/barbies/trucks? No! But we did once in a while. And while doing the chores around the house we "played". I loved turning the music on and dancing and singing while doing chores, and so did all of my kids. I guess it all depends on what you call "play time".

All three of my kids needed different amounts of direct 1 on 1 play time with me in toddler-hood. The oldest was pretty demanding, wanted a lot of interaction, the next would be happy pushing a truck around in the dirt for HOURS alone, and the third had two big brothers for constant interaction whether she wanted it or not.

I gave them all as much as I could stand (teehehe, well I AM a grown up, you know?). Now they are nearly all grown ups too, it seems to have worked out ok.

Do you ask because you think your child should be wanting MORE of your time? I ask that based on your previous question about how you were worried about over-independence.

It's ok for her to play by herself, and it's ok if she wants a little more mommy time. There is a very very broad spectrum of 'normal'.

:)

I am not a SAHM, but I find the answers really interesting. I always assumed SAHMs spent all their time with their children and was surprised to find that is not the case. My son started daycare 3 days a week at 9 weeks of age. He spent one weekday with me, one with DH and the two weekend days we spend together. As a toddler, one of us was virtually always interacting directly with him on his 4 days a week with us and from the moment we picked him up from daycare until bedtime. The adult not making dinner, doing laundry, cleaning up was always with him. I wonder if this is typical.

When he was still a toddler, 12-24 months he started doing play by himself more as he got older. Once he was a pre-schooler I could let him have crayons and stuff and let him sit with paper at the little tykes table in the kitchen.

Not much. I always had things set up, interesting toys, and we got out of the house a lot, went to the park and friends' houses, etc. My kids played really well on their own and with each other. My one on one time was usually spent reading, snuggling and watching TV together, for the most part. And of course always involving them in whatever I was doing, cooking, dishes, laundry, exercise, gardening, etc.