How to socialize my 2 y/o
Hey there, I wanted to make a post to see if there are any parents with advice. I have a two year-old boy and am now 5 1/2 months pregnant with our second boy. My son loves other children from ages one and a half and up (as long as they are able to walk and interact). We live in the country and so I am a stay at home mom with my son. We’ve looked into daycare’s, and into churches with daycare, but not only are they too expensive for our one income household, but I just get a little paranoid about leaving him for hours a day since I’ve been at home with him since he was born.
Today we went to a local park where there’s usually just a handful of kids that he can find to play with. Today, there was a huge field day for children that are homeschooled ages 6-12. My son really wanted to play with every kid there and join in with their activities. I had to lead him away to go play on the play sets because we were not part of the homeschool children.
My son ended up crying once I separated him and kept trying to go back to their activities. There were no other kids on the playground it seemed, and it broke my heart to see him want to play with other children so bad.
Long story short, I just feel guilty for having him stay at home with me when I know he craves interaction with other children every time we go out. I do frequently take him to the parks in town, but now I really wanna find an affordable part-time daycare or if anybody knows any groups or activities that involve lots of kids that I can find. I just don’t know how to navigate all the groups or how to discover how to become a part of any groups with kids his age.
I’ve tried the apps like Peanut and other apps where you can find mothers with kids, but I’ve really had no luck especially in my area where we live.
Please let me know what you all do for your children if you can’t afford daycare, how do you socialize them?