There’s a particular sound a wet Saturday makes in this house, and it isn’t the rain. It’s seven children realising at roughly the same moment that nobody is going anywhere, followed by someone asking what’s for lunch at half past nine in the morning.
We’ve had a lot of practice at this. Living in Norfolk means the weather does what it likes, and over the years I’ve learned that a rainy day only goes badly when I haven’t thought about it in advance. The kids’ bikes go back in the shed, the wellies stay by the door, and I need something ready that isn’t the telly by eleven o’clock.
So here’s what actually works for us, and none of it costs much.
Build a den and then leave them to it
I know every parenting site says den building and I know it sounds too simple, but there’s a reason it keeps coming up. It uses the dining chairs and the airing cupboard blankets, it takes them ages, and once it’s built they’ll stay in there for hours doing something mysterious that I’ve learned not to ask about.
My tip after many, many dens: give them one rule, which is that the sofa cushions come back before teatime. Otherwise you’re still finding them on Tuesday.
Bring the outdoor games indoors
When the rain is properly set in and nobody’s getting out on their bikes, we move the games inside. Sock skittles down the hallway with a soft ball.
An obstacle course made from cushions, a laundry basket and the ironing board laid flat. Balloon keepy-uppy, which sounds daft and has genuinely occupied my younger two for forty-five minutes.
If you’ve got a garage or a covered bit of driveway, that counts as indoors for these purposes. Ours has seen a fair amount of scooter racing on days when the garden was a swamp.
Bake something, even if it’s a disaster
Baking is the one that ticks the most boxes. It fills an hour or more, there’s an outcome at the end, and the older ones can genuinely do it themselves while I get on with something else.
Flapjack is my go-to because it’s forgiving and it uses things I’ve always got in. Cupcakes are better if you want the decorating to stretch it out, because the icing takes twice as long as the baking and they’re far more invested in it.
Small world play buys you the longest stretch
If I had to pick one thing that reliably absorbs a small child on a wet day, it’s the kind of play where they’ve got a whole little world set up on the living room floor.
A doll set with the furniture and accessories included works far better than a single doll, and I say that having bought plenty of both.
When everything’s there in the box, they can get straight into playing instead of spending twenty minutes hunting for something to be the bed.
Same goes for a farm, a garage or a dolls’ house. My youngest two will disappear into that for the entire afternoon and I’ll get the ironing done.
The other thing I’d say is that it doesn’t have to be new. Ours get rotated. I put half of it away in the loft for a few months and bring it back out, and they greet it like Christmas.
Craft, but only if you’ve got everything
Crafting on a rainy day is brilliant right up until you discover you’ve run out of PVA glue and the shops are a twenty minute drive in torrential rain.
I keep a box on top of the wardrobe with the basics in it, glue, card, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and the felt tips that still work. It cost very little to put together and it’s saved several afternoons. Check it before the wet weather hits, not during.
A film, but make an occasion of it
I’m not going to pretend we don’t put a film on. Of course we do. But there’s a difference between a film going on because everyone’s fed up, and a film that’s been built up all morning.
We push the sofas back, everyone brings their duvet down, I do popcorn, and the little ones draw the tickets. Takes ten minutes to set up and turns two hours of screen time into something they’ll mention weeks later.
Don’t try to fill the whole day
This is the thing I wish I’d worked out sooner. I used to plan a rainy day like a timetable and then get frustrated when it fell apart by lunchtime.
Now I plan two proper activities, one in the morning and one after lunch, and I let the rest of it be whatever it’s going to be.
Children are perfectly capable of being bored for a bit. Some of the best playing in this house has come out of half an hour where nobody had anything organised for them.
The rain will stop eventually. The bikes will come back out. And on the days it doesn’t stop, you’ve got a den in the living room and flapjack cooling on the side, which is honestly not a bad way to spend a Saturday.