How to Survive the Winter Indoors With Young Children?

When winter weather hits and outdoor playtime shrinks, being stuck inside with young children can feel long, loud, and never-ending. So how do you survive winter indoors with young kids???

After living in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah with 6 kids making winter fun became a necessity for my sanity!

Below are some of my top suggestions on how to survive—and even enjoy—winter days at home with little ones.

1. Set a Loose Daily Rhythm

Young children thrive on predictability. Create a daily rhythm that repeats. Start by looking for the natural hooks then build from there.

Morning: breakfast, movement, learning or creative play
Midday: lunch, quiet time or nap
Afternoon: free play, simple activities
Evening: dinner, wind-down, bedtime routine

Knowing what comes next helps kids feel secure and reduces meltdowns—while giving you flexibility when things don’t go as planned.

2. Prioritize Daily Movement

When kids can’t burn energy outside, it shows inside! Make winter indoors an opportunity to get creative with movement.

Try these easy ideas:

Dance parties
Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube (My kids Favorite!)
Obstacle courses with pillows, chairs, cardboard boxes, etc.
Floor is Lava with felt, towels, paper plates, etc.
Balloon keep it up game
Animal walks (bear crawl, frog jumps)

Ten minutes of movement can completely reset the mood in your home.

3. Rotate Toys to Keep Things “New”

Instead of putting out every toy at once, rotate toys weekly or bi-weekly.

Focus on:

Open-ended toys (blocks, dolls, cars)
Art supplies
Puzzles and games
Pretend play items

This rotation will create excitement while reducing clean up!

Keep It Simple Tips: Years ago, I went to the dollar store and bought 8 containers with lids, then rotated half the containers every week. (Plus, I only used toys we already owned.)

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4. Embrace Simple, Low-Prep Activities

You don’t need Pinterest-perfect crafts every day. Kids just love to create!

Below are activities for all ages. Use your parental discretion to decide if your child can do the activity alone or with supervision.

Easy winter activities:

Coloring or sticker books
Whiteboards – Use Windows (Sliding Glass door at my house.)
Baking simple recipes together
Homemade Playdough (a year-round staple)
Building forts
Shadow Puppets
Origami
Hot Glue a cardboard tower, small car, space ship for your LEGOS, etc.
Paper airplanes: Then have a flying contest
Egg drop project: Build a cushy container for your eggs, then test it. (Good luck.)
Sensory bins with rice, beans, or snow
Bathtub fun: Bubbles, Glow Sticks, Disco Lights, Music, Bath Paints, Bath Bombs with hidden toys, etc
Reading chapter books aloud or Audio books
Paints (Watercolor Paints With Water Pen)

5. Bright light – low light

Set the house mood with lights.

During waking hours have windows open and turn on lights.

In preparation for quiet time and naps lower the lighting about 30 minutes before. (I would pair it with lunch.)

This same principle applies to music and etectronics.

When the environment feels calm, relaxing is a natural side effect.

6. Protect Quiet Time

Planning for quiet time will quickly become something you look forward to.

Think of quiet time as a reset to finish the second half of your day.

Quiet time ideas:

Audiobooks
Puzzles
Coloring
Independent play in their room
Reading or looking at pictures if they can’t read yet
Use your rotational containers we talked about above.

How we do Quite Time at our house:

1 hour quiet time
In saft place, like bedroom
Preferably by themselves
Go to the bathroom before
Choose play items ahead of time
No electronics
Give them a timer! It’s a must. They will not come out to ask you how much longer. Here’s my favorite timer.
Consistency!

Quiet Time quickly became a family routine, benefiting not only the kids but me! What could you do with 1 hour kid free???

Interesting Story: Just the other day, my 11-year-old boy, who stated quiet time at age 3, asked me, “Mom, when is quiet time today?” I was taken back, thinking you’re old enough to create your own quiet time, right??? Quiet Time is for everyone, at any age!

*For safety, please use parental discretion. We are not responsible for accidents, injuries, or choking hazards.

7. Lower Expectations

Winter indoors can create a parenting survival mode scenario—and that’s okay.

Screens might increase
Messes might last longer
Some days won’t be productive

Life isn’t about perfection. It’s about finding the joy amongst the chaos.

Those dirty face smiles, wall smudges, and blanket forts do fade, so step back and soak up the moment.

8. Help! I give up!

Sometimes you just want to throw your hands in the air and say I give up! Even when using all the above tricks and tips some days are just plain hard!

For those days, these are my go-to’s:

Connection
- A hug and snuggle time go a long way
- Read a book together (If they say no, just start reading out loud to the teddy bear, dog, house plant, etc.)
Step away for a quick mental reset
- Step in the other room
- Close you eyes
- Breathe slowly and intentionally
- Repeat an uplifting phrase
- Something like: “I’m a great mom, I love my kids”, or “I’m amazing, this is hard,…”, etc.
Prayer
- Because God knows them better than you do.
- Say something like: “God, help me to love them and see them as you do.”
- Accompanied by slow breathing.
- Then just listen as you go about your day.

Final Thoughts

Surviving winter indoors with young children isn’t about doing more—it’s about trying your best to be prepared, giving yourself grace if it looks different than you planned, and looking for the JOY along the way.

Motherhood is wonderful!

You being here reading this is not by chance.

You are one amazing mama. I pray you have the best winter with those little humans that are lucky enough to call Mom. 💗

-Chantell