‘The Winter Potty List’ - 24 things to do with your toddler before spring

Growing Up Milk have come up with a fun bucket list - or should that be potty list ? - of things to do with your toddler during the winter months. How many have you done already ? As you can see from the photos, we've done most of them already !

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THE WINTER POTTY LIST

Or 24 things to do before spring

It may be cold outside but there’s no need for toddlers to hibernate this winter with Growingupmilkinfo’s fun guide of things to do with your little one. The team from the toddler nutrition website are back with a list of must-do activities toddlers should have ticked off before spring has sprung.

From building a den to getting messy in the kitchen, the list has been created using suggestions from parents nationwide and experts, including children’s play expert Adrian Voce OBE and Growingupmilkinfo.com nutritionist Leanne Olivier. The list is made up of 24 activities, one for each day of the weekend, to keep toddlers entertained and topped-up with essential nutrients throughout the winter.

The Winter Potty List is not only a celebration of fun things that parents can do with their little ones, it also includes ways to ensure your toddler gets the hard to get nutrients they need, especially the ‘sunshine vitamin’, vitamin D, which children often lack in the winter time.

The 24 must-do activities that make up ‘The Winter Potty List’ include:

· Build a den with the biggest cardboard box you can find

· Find lots of mummy’s funny clothes and play dress up

· Make music in the kitchen using your plate, pans, and a wooden spoon

· Walk through a pile of leaves as big as you

· Play chef for a day and design funny faces for Fisherman’s Jackets (jacket potato with yummy tuna) or yummy fish cakes. Not only is it fun but it’s a good source of vitamin D too

· Make a warm drink and snuggle up in front of a Christmas movie

· Host a teddy bears’ picnic, tucking into nutritious snacks and a beaker of Growing Up Milk, while mum sits back with a cuppa

· Touch, Smell and Taste game: Try it with healthy foods, like tinned salmon, crunchy carrots and Growing Up Milk

· Get your hands messy in the kitchen and make festive fruit flapjacks or fruit scones

· Make a rain catcher

· Decorate your room with handmade snowflakes

· Build a snowman (or a snowdog, if there isn't enough snow!)

· Decorate a gingerbread house

· Play musical statues

· Dance in the rain

· Hold a treasure hunt around the house

· Put on a Christmas concert

· Get creative and make Christmas wrapping paper and gift tags

· Make salt dough prints of your hands and feet

· Make a snow angel

· Visit Santa and his little elves

· Camp out in the lounge using a bed sheet for a tent

· Pop on your wellington boots and jump in the mud

· Take a walk in the woodlands

Children’s play expert Adrian Voce comments: “Playing for toddlers is the way they discover and develop their own capacity to create and manipulate things, to explore their senses and how they come to know themselves. All of the activities on the Winter Potty List are filled with wonder for toddlers.

“Children’s play can have an extremely positive effect on a toddler’s happiness and health, which is why it’s so important to provide your little one with adequate opportunities for play. Growingupmilkinfo.com’s Winter Potty list is an easy way to get active, explore new experiences and, most importantly, have fun with your little one during the often dreary winter months.”

Growingupmilkinfo.com nutritionist, Leanne Olivier, adds: “It’s impossible for toddlers to get vitamin D from the UK sun at this time of the year, so it’s important that toddlers get a daily dietary intake. Unfortunately vitamin D is one of those nutrients that can be hard to get in the daily diet because it’s not found naturally in many foods; especially ones that toddlers like to eat.

“Oily fish and liver aren’t to every toddler’s taste buds, but Growing Up Milk, which is a fortified milk drink, is a great way to ensure that your toddler gets a daily boost of vitamin D in their diet. The Winter Potty List includes some tasty activities where you can use Growing Up Milk to top up your toddler’s daily diet.”

The years from one-to-three are an amazing period of growth and development for toddlers, so it comes as no surprise that they need the right nutrition, including vitamin D, to support them during this time. In the UK, toddlers’ opportunities to get vitamin D from the sun are severely limited during the winter months. This makes it even more important for parents to ensure they are getting all the essential nutrients they need through their diet.

Growing Up Milk is made from cows’ milk enriched with key nutrients that toddlers need, like vitamins D, A and C, iron, calcium and omega 3 & 6. Just two 150ml beakers of Growing Up Milk each day provides 73 per cent of a toddler’s reference nutrient intake of vitamin D and is an easy way to top up your toddler’s daily intake of essential nutrients.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

THE POTTY LIST... Or 36 Things To Do Before You're Three

Bear Grylls' Top Ten Things To Do Before You're Ten

THE MINI BABYBEL GET CREATIVE LIST