Hi, I’m Maham
And if you’ve ever spent way too much time on Instagram or Pinterest thinking, “Ooh, my toddler would LOVE this!”… only to spend money buying things and then 30 minutes setting it up and have your toddler walk away after 2 minutes…
Yep. Been there.I have a three and a half year old boy and for last two years, I’ve been trying to figure out this whole independent play and learn thing.
I’ve tried them all: sensory bins, magnetic tiles, the obnoxiously expensive wooden toys, water tables, pom poms and what not…
But man have they failed me at every turn- instead of keeping my toddler they just ended up draining my energy and coffers
You see thing is
My son just isn’t that kid who sits down quietly and plays for ages.
I’d set up this beautiful little activity I’d found on Instagram, sit beside him hoping he’d get into it…
Instead he’d be fidgeting, jumping around, asking me to play, or finding approximately 17 other things to do.
I’d look at those Instagram mums with their toddlers calmly sitting at a little activity table and think…“Is my child the only one who didn’t get this memo?”
And then there was the mess.
Oh, the mess.
My son can turn a completely innocent activity into a full-house situation.
Water? On the floor and somehow splashed on the walls too
Paint? On the table, floor, clothes, curtains… everywhere.
Pom-poms? Don’t even get me started.I don’t have a vacuum cleaner, so guess who gets to pick up every. single. little. pom-pom. by hand?
I realised that a lot of the “easy toddler activities” I was saving weren’t actually easy for me.
When I got pregnant the second time, setting up these elaborate activities became even harder. I’d spend ages preparing something, order supplies from Amazon, wait for everything to arrive…
And then my son wouldn’t even want to do the activity.Of course, he’d happily want to make a mess with the supplies I’d bought, though.So I’d end up hiding things away because the last thing I needed was a toddler meltdown over a packet of pom-poms.
At the same time, I was thinking about school.My son is starting school a year late, and I wanted to make sure he was getting those basic foundations — letters, numbers, colours, shapes and all those little things they’re expected to know.
But I didn’t want learning to mean sitting him down with worksheets for hours.And I definitely didn’t want every learning activity to involve another giant clean-up.
That’s when I started making my own.I started creating activities around what actually works for us.
Things that are quick to set up.Things that don’t need a shopping list of supplies.Things that don’t turn the house upside down.Things that can sneak a little learning into play. And most importantly…
Things that work for real toddlers.Not the perfectly calm toddler in the Instagram photo.
The wiggly one.
The easily distracted one.The one who changes their mind halfway through.The one who somehow manages to make a mess with something that shouldn’t even be messy.
Simple, screen-free activities and printables for busy parents who want their little ones to play, learn and stay occupied without spending hours preparing activities or cleaning up afterwards.
You don’t need to scroll, save things or even think what to do
Just print out the resources, hand out a few crayons and let your kid be creative
I’m not here to promise that your toddler will suddenly play independently for three hours.
Honestly, if I get 20 minutes, I’m calling that a win.
20 minutes to make dinner.
20 minutes to feed the baby.
20 minutes to answer an email.
20 minutes to drink a coffee while it’s actually hot.
That’s the kind of “independent play” I’m after.
If you’re a mum who has tried the Instagram activities, bought the supplies, cleaned up the mess and thought “there has to be an easier way”…
You’re in the right place❤
Maham