Other than dd ds dosnt play with other kids at all. On the rare occasion when he does he has a good time and does great.

 

for us, we do a lot. if i stay at home too much, i get a little crazy. our local adult school has a really great program for parents. we've been attending since I landed my job as a SAHM when DS was 8 months old (now age 2). It's just groups of moms (sometimes dads and grandparents) with their children grouped by age with age appropriate activities and the teacher moderates a discussion each week. the discussion is really informal and you don't have to participate if you don't want to. they'll give a hand out on that topic each week and mostly it's been very AP so I've really felt comfortable there with the staff and all the other parents are mostly on seeming to be on board with the same philosophies. So in these classes, we're around other kids. We have always gone to one class once a week but this session, i signed up for two classes with my toddler - the normal partners in play class and then a gardening with your toddler class. i'm in a 3rd one with my infant and toddler goes with grandma or SIL.

i tried really hard to find other moms in playgroups but didn't have much luck "clicking" with a group that stuck together.

i tried MOPS once but DS was way too unfamiliar with the childcare situation and they had to bring him to me because he wouldn't stop crying so I never went back.

also... DS has two older cousins (8 and 10) he sees from time to time and a few more he sees a little less often (ages 9 and 4). Then he has other out of town cousins we see on occaision.

 

We have a core play group that gets together twice a week. I also occasionally go to the LLL toddler play dates and the local yahoo AP play groups.

 

Right now, probably 2-3 times a week.

It will be more soon. When my dh deploys we'll be staying very, very busy so I won't have a chance to mope too much, and he's sooo attached to daddy that I want him to be able to stay busy, too.

Right now, it's usually once a week at the park for a playdate and once a week in the nursery at church. Occasionally there will be a second playdate or we'll happen to go to the park and there will be other's his age who will want to play with him.

Until about a month or so ago he wasn't around kids his age very much, but I have noticed it's made a world of difference in him- in a good way.

We actually are going to a playgroup at the park tomorrow. I'm looking around for affordable mommy & me classes.

ETA: Have you thought about looking in your local tribe area and seeing if someone wants to do a playdate/group?

 

we go to the Y a couple times a week and church (she goes to the nursery) every sunday. It was hard at first but now she loves it and gets to play with other kids while mommy gets a much needed break. She plays with a friends kids too but they are 11 and 5 so not really the same age as her.

 

When DS was that age he probably played with other kids 1-3 times a week.

We went to story time at the library once a week (although he didn't always interact much with the other kids there), went to the park a couple of times a week (but it's a tiny park and we went mid-day, so there weren't always other kids there), got together with our friends who have kids once a week, and played outside with the neighbor kids about once a week.

 

Don't go to any playgroups, don't really get together with friends regularly, just whenever we feel like it or have time.

DS gets most of his interaction with kids when we go to the playground. He is 3,5 years old and next week he'll start a regular, once a week music class.

 

When my oldest was that age, not more than once a month. Often less.

Now, I have three, so they have their siblings, and are also involved in weekly Sunday School with kids their age. Once a month or so we meet up with other homsechooling families at a park.

For us, it's been more than enough. Our kids love being with peers, and are very sociable, but they don't need constant contact with other children.

 

For us, dc get together with the neighbor kids about once a month (sometimes more, sometimes less). All the kids here are usually in full-time preschool by 2/3 yo, so no daytime playmates around, and in the evening dh comes home and they prefer to play with him. No playgroups or other options for us to get out and about with other kids, and no vehicle to get there during the day either.

DS is 2.5yo and DD is 1yo, so it's just getting to the point where they play together pretty well. Before when it was just DS, he would spend a lot of time playing/helping me.

When they do get out, they are fine with playing or hanging around other kids.

I just read an article that talked about the importance of time spent with parents when kids are this age (prior to kindergarten). The research seems to indicate that kids who don't spend much time socializing with other kids do not suffer any adverse affects when compared with kids who spend a lot of time socializing with other kids.

IMO, I think it depends primarily on your situation (do you have a vehicle or way to get around? do you have groups you could go to? are there activities/places to go to?) and also your child's temerment and personality. So just follow the cues that you get from your kiddo and do what can within the bounds of your situation.

 

My son is 15 months and we see other babies/kids a couple times a week, sometimes more often.

 

Not as much as I would like, I don't have any other "mom" friends

But DD sees her 4 and 5 year old cousins twice a week.

 

Hi Mama,
We see other kiddos 4 or more times a week. Once for church, once for story time at the library, and then 2 or more playdates a week. She loves seeing all of her friends and I enjoy the mix of mainstream and granola-crunchy parents at the different groups.
~maddymama

 

Most days, though weekends are iffy.

I can usually call up another mom for playtime or a coffee break just about any day of the week. Or we go to the park, the library, the little discovery museum. We have a core playgroup which meets once a week, plus I've met other parents (through MDC, babywearing, water classes at our gym) who like to get together.

This week we'll have playgroup, music class, and I think LLL. I could be wrong about LLL. My husband telecommutes, so I've become accustomed to leaving the house daily and finding stuff to do. Our local parks & rec offers classes for toddlers and they're pretty inexpensive.

Ask your library to try a younger storytime. Ours starts with a pre-walkers group and goes up from there.

You can meet folks at parks and you might just strike up a friendship! Have you posted in your tribal area on MDC?

I think it's important to have friends. There are days when I need to vent to another parent. And while my kiddo doesn't always play *with* other toddlers, he enjoys playing near them.

 

Not often at all, like never unless we go on vacation to visit family. I have no friends who live near me and don't know any people in my area yet. We did just spend 3 weeks with family and ds (16months) had a blast with his cousins who are 6 and 10 years old.

 

DS is 14 months old, he goes to my mom's daycare once a week. Sometimes I stay, other times I go home and get some things done. When he gets closer to school age he'll go there a few times a week so he'll make friends with the kids he'll go to school with.

 

We generally see friends once a week. We do a lot of errands with our neighbor and her 3yo (my DD is 2), so we see them 2-3 days of the week for an hour or two. We also frequent playgrounds a lot, so we see other random kids that DD may play with. LLL is three times a month (2 different meetings, plus a playgroup).

 

We see dd's "friends," as she calls them, ( two separate playgroups) at least twice a week and she interacts with other, unfamiliar kids at the park, library, or children's museum most other days. On weekends, it's mostly mommy and daddy time, unless we have family over or are getting together with friends. My dd is very sociable and really enjoys the company of other children, whether they are around her age or not. She plays differently with kids than she does with me and other adults and she talks about the time she spends with her few main friends for days.

 

We meet up with our friends 3 to 4 days a week. Our local MOMS club is great and has activities planned for most days of the month. I need the interaction as much, if not more, than ds does.

 

Henri has his big brother, but they're so close in age (11.5m apart) so he kind of has a "built in" playmate there. He's also got Fleur, and I guess a 3 month old makes a great playmate because he sure spends a lot of time talking to her and bringing her toys and smelling her feet

But other than that Henri doesn't see other kids very often.

 

Never and I feel awful about it. We live in the sticks so there is no Y, no MOPS, no mom's groups, no kid classes she can take. All the kids her age are in daycare all day. All the churches in our are are super super super MAJOR conservative. All of my friends live half an hour away and most either don't have kids or have much older children who are in school and involved in activities. She has a cousin who is only a month younger than she is, but he is in day care all day or tagging along with his older brother's activities. There is NO ONE for her to hang out with!

She LOVES other children. She's SO social (and she gets it from me, so we are both wilting in this lack of social life) and really really good at being with other kids and people of all ages. In stores, she tries so hard to interact with other children and I feel so guilty. I keep telling my husband that when she's old enough to understand we moved here from a major city just before she was born, she's going to be so ticked off.

When you ask her where she lives, she says, "I live to the big big city and there are LOTS of kids." Sob.

There are a lot of fall activites coming up, some of them we're going to have to drive HOURS to attend but we are GOING and we are doing every age-appropriate thing we can possibly squeeze in.

There are days I think about doing in home daycare so that she can have some kids to play with.

 

When my first was 2, she "socialized" with other children probably about once a month, and maybe as much as once a week during the summer when the little boy next door was out playing.

Now, I have four. The kids have each other, the neighborhood kids, go RE (Sunday School) and nursery once a week, SpiralScouts, soccer, and LLL and the occasional playgroups/park days with homeschooley friends. If you count RE, my 2 yo probably socializes with non-sibling children twice a week, on average. For my older kids it's more. The level we're at is plenty!

 

My soon to be one year old has contact with others his age at least 3 times a week, and with kids older than him about twice a week. We go to a music group for all ages (well, most kids are toddlers or three or four), and meet regularly with other SAHM's and their babies. I don't think he 'needs' it at this age, developmentally, but I do find he is happier and more confident, less clingyto me, if there are other kids around, and he really enjoys watching the older kids and what they get up to. Also I find it's helping him be 'used' to other children, I've seen kids who have had no contact and they sometimes have tendencies to be too rough or bite, etc. (although of course that can happen even when the child is used to contact too!)

 

Not as much as i was going with my daughter when she was this age.

We do go to the park sometimes. My daughters best friend has a little sister that close to my sons age so we meet with them sometimes when the older girls are in school.

We also go to my moms and i have a 3yr old brother and 2yr old sister that my son plays with.

 

I have a friend/neighbor down the street who has a almost 3yo dd and a 5yo ds. The ds comes over and plays with my (4yo) ds probably 4 days a week at least. Some days it's an hour, some days it's longer.
I babysit both kids once a week for a bunch of hours, too.

We have another friend that we see once every couple weeks, and ds has a once a week class at the local rec. center (different class every season).

I'm really lucky I have my neighbor! Ds wouldn't be getting NEAR as much playmate time if she didn't live so close, and he's so happy to have a friend to play with all the time.

 

A couple of times a week, pro'lly starting when he was about a yr, now it's slowed down b/c of new baby bro--for a while maybe 3-4x a week. For a while I had all this guilt--I SHOULD be exposing him to other kids, he's missing out, he needs to socialize!! blah blah blah. But you know, he just turned 3 and he's just now expressed a real desire and enjoyment to play w/ other kids--before he'd just watch or parallel play. So I wouldn't worry so much that you don't go out a lot,b/c it isn't like they really even play w/ each other until 3-4, y/k? I think the benefits for us prior to 2.5-3 were getting out to do something different and me seeing my mommy friends.

I found my awesome playgroup thru LLL, but they're a homeschooling group and I could have found them thru Yahoo if I had looked. I'm also in a Meetup group--did you sign up for notifications to things you're intersted in? I get notifications whenever a new SAHM/AP/preschool playgroup meetup starts. My Meetup group does a lot but it's one mom who organizes it all--volunteers her house for playdates, fire station tours, meeting at the mall or whatever--maybe you could do that? I'm too lazy, lol. Yahoo groups is good too.

We moved here from another state 5 yrs ago and I'm just now feeling like I have a pretty good social network, and I think I've been pretty proactive and have worked at it! But anyway, I think your child pro'lly enjoys being around you more than any other kids at this point, other kids/people are just an interesting extra.