Julia Deering - The Playful Parent - 7 ways to happier, calmer, more creative days with your under-fives

Toddlers will also be very happy to occasionally play along with cooking in the kitchen. Hand over a selection of safe kitchen utensils and equipment, for example a real saucepan with a wooden spoon – which is often more tempting than a toy version – and some dried pasta (you can re-use this for play cooking over and over again) and they’ll be ‘cooking’ up a storm in no time.

‘Play along with play dough.’ This activity has got me out of a tight spot many a time when my two children were toddlers. At the kitchen table or equivalent, give your child a ball of herb-infused play dough(recipe), a few toy kitchen utensils, a couple of plastic plates and an empty shoe box (which makes a great oven) and they’ll be happily occupied while you get on with the real deal. Play dough is so versatile; your little one will be able to make anything from peas and pasta, to potatoes and pizza.

Less-frequent chores

Cleaning the car

I only ever contemplate cleaning the car if there are children involved. I’ve yet to meet a child who doesn’t love it, and this makes the whole thing seem much more of an attractive proposition in my book. The car may not get a thorough clean by child alone, but there’ll be fun and laughter in bucket loads to accompany what might otherwise be a rather arduous task. Make sure everyone is in appropriate clothing and footwear so that getting wet isn’t a problem – because they will definitely get wet.

Set up your carwash together before you start: assemble buckets and bowls full of warm soapy water, sponges, brushes and cloths and drinking-water bottles for rinsing. Chamois-leathers and soft cloths need to be kept out of reach until step 4.

Use a sand-timer or equivalent to help move smoothly from one stage of the job to the next. There are five steps:

1 A first rinse: everyone can help rinse the whole car with clean water to remove the scratchy surface dust and dirt. Flinging water from drinking-water bottles is great fun, and easy for little ones to master.

2 Soaping and scrubbing: the grown up should clean the wheels (using a heavy-duty scrubbing brush if possible) as these are likely to be the dirtiest part of the car. The children can soap-up wherever they can reach.

3 Rinsing off the soap: as step 1, but the aim of the game is to rid the car of bubbles rather than to just wet it. Start from as high as possible and work down the car, for efficient de-soaping.

4 Drying : use a chamois to dry the bodywork – wring it out frequently while your little one uses a piece of newspaper to get the windows smear-free. They may need to stand on their sink-step to do this.

5 Cleaning inside the car : you could vacuum while your child cleans the dust off the dashboard and so on. Soft paintbrushes can often get into the hard-to-reach dusty and crumby nooks and crannies. I swear by baby wipes for a thorough de-stickying of door handles, gear stick and steering wheel. Young children will find being allowed to sit in the front of the car very exciting – do allow time for their imaginative play, as they will undoubtedly ‘drive’ you to the beach or the zoo.

Defrosting the freezer

This is a relatively infrequent job, but sometimes it’s imperative. You know that moment? It’s when it becomes impossible to open or close the freezer drawers without using the force of ten men, and there’s only the freezer’s own ice in there anyway. Sometimes, you have no choice but to carry out this chore while in charge of little ones – so here are a few ways to manage that eventuality:

While you’re emptying the frozen stuff into cool bags to preserve what you can, empty your ice-cube tray onto a large flat metal or plastic tray for your little ones to play with. Ice cubes glide, skid and crash brilliantly – a bit like bumper-cars. Add a little silver glitter, plastic toy animals and figures and you’ll have a brilliant small-world Polar landscape for your little one to enjoy. (See hereand herefor more ideas for small world play.)

If you have one of those no-mess Aquamats, let your child draw with the melting ice cubes instead of the water-filled pens it comes with; it’s a very satisfying experience.

If the ice cream is simply not going to stay frozen enough to make it back into the freezer, why not treat yourselves to a home-made sundae while your freezer is defrosting? Let your little one help with scooping the ice cream, adding any sprinkles, fruit and sauce that you have to hand. These extras could be presented to the children in your empty ice-cube tray (if there’s a few of you) so there’s just enough of everything displayed and ready for self-service.

Cleaning windows

Some people recommend cleaning the windows twice a year, but I know that we wash some of our windows more often than that – and others (those we can’t easily reach) about . . . never. If you use your windows in play (which I really hope you might consider, if you don’t already) – you will need to wash them more frequently, of course, but at least it’ll be because they’ve been dirtied through use and not just accumulated grub. I don’t know why that makes me feel better, but it does. My mum said she loved it when her grandchildren came to visit her because she would see their little hand marks on the glass doors out to the garden and note them getting just a little higher up the pane each time. Apparently, she sometimes didn’t wipe them off, just to remind her of our last visit. I suspect that’s a grandmother-love-thing, but remembering this means I’m never miffed at finger marks on our windows.

Allocate an accessible windowpane for your child to clean while you clean others nearby. Of course you will have to go back and properly wash their window later, but this chore is much more fun if you have a little help-mate close by.

Hand over some neoprene (craft) foam shapes or those foam shapes or letters for use in the bath, plus a little water in a plastic pot or cup and small paintbrush. Your child could then decorate one of the windows.

Sorting out outgrown and worn-out clothes

There’s nothing like the simultaneous change of season and a growth spurt to suddenly render 70 per cent of a child’s wardrobe useless. If your children’s clothes need a bit of a sort out, try this three-pile sorting game. My children loved playing this when they were under five, and although it would often lead to some sudden sentimentality about clothes that had been fiercely refused before, it worked as a fun way to get the job done, with the children conveniently there to check what fitted and what didn’t. Tumble the contents of their wardrobes and drawers onto their bedroom floor and let the Goldilocks Three-pile Sort begin. The three piles could be:

Clothes that are too small (or too worn out) to keep – to give or throw away

Clothes that are too big (perhaps inherited from older siblings or cousins, and the like) – to store away

Clothes that are just right and fit your child now