CREATING A TODDLER FUN GARDEN WITH WICKEY
/We are well and truly locked down for the foreseeable future over here in the UK in Lockdown 0.3. So, having to keep an extremely energetic, full of beans 2.5 year old stimulated and making sure he gets exercise, spending plenty of time outdoors in the fresh air is a challenge. But a challenge is there to be met and knocked out of the park right?
Thanks to our friends over at Wickey, that challenge is no longer as challenging and life in lockdown with an energetic toddler is making us feel like we’re smashing this lockdown parenting lark- and its all thanks to a treasure island / pirate ship inspired adventure climbing frame, also known as the Wickey MultiFlyer with Wooden roof.
We as a family have decided to keep a wide berth from the local playgrounds and play areas as much as possible and I know in some parts of the UK, recreation play areas have been closed to the public. We are fortunate that our house came with a fair sized garden and outside space enabling us to have a designated, safe area for Otis to play. It took some imagination and picture building to get there but we have come up with a flat space of lawn that accommodates a play area for him to play and run about in. This is in stark contrast to the day we completed on the house. The garden area was more like a deep dark woodland area. The garden had been left to its own devices for a long period of time and was not a usable space at all. We loved the appeal of the woodland and the environment it created was beautiful. It was a picture perfect woodland landscape from the back of the house and it was home to the local wildlife. We fully intend to restore that woodland feel to the garden in the future, both my husband and I are committed to planting trees and foliage to encourage further wildlife back to the garden. At the moment it is all about practicality and necessity and the priority is for Otis to have somewhere he can play outside so he gets plenty of contact with nature, plenty of fresh air in his lungs and most importantly for me and the husband - that he runs, climbs, swings and slides about to his hearts content, gets tired and is happy and safe.
The Wickey MultiFlyer climbing frame with wooden roof
The play frame itself is aesthetically pleasing to the eye as kids play equipment goes. It’s made of pressure treated natural wood and Wickey provide a 10 – year guarantee on all of their wooden products and 2 – year guarantee on all of the fun accessories they create and come up with.
The Wickey MultifFyer comes with a red steering wheel (life in the fast lane), a little yellow telescope (so Otis can spot all the birds, squirrels and foxes that visit the garden), a climbing wall (inspiring Otis to be an outdoorsy type), a 220cm slide with a water connection (hello Summer fun), two swings - which will be super fun when we’re allowed to invite his friends over - or better yet, if we have another child for Otis to play with. It’s all about future proofing, right?
It also also has a gorgeous wooden roof which is perfect for sheltering under if the weather turns, plus it gives Otis the feeling of being in a den and has even eaten his lunch up there, whilst he’s playing. What’s even better is Wickey offers a whole range of other cool accessories which you can mix and match and add to the climbing frame including different swing seats from baby to double swing seats, rope ladders, a bell, a mail box, or even a nest swing. You can mix and match as many accessories you want which will also enable the MultiFlyer climbing frame to grow with Otis as he gets older or adapt if our family gets bigger.
Otis’ favourite activity when we visit our local play area is the swing. Typically we spend the majority of our time either queuing up for the swing (we are still coming to grips with the nature of being patient), or sweet talking Otis to stand down from the swing and let another child have ago, usually resulting in him negotiating ‘another 5 minutes mummy.’ So the combo we plumped for from the Wickey Multiflyer range was ‘swing heavy’ - a double swing, tower, ladder, climbing wall, slide, steering wheel and telescope set up. He loves it. Even better my husband, who will be the first to admit isn’t a lover of building anything, not even a lego set – managed to assemble the climbing frame together with my help. It took us about 6 hours all in all with hubby leading the build- and we did not row once …. lol. The end result is Otis is happy, which means we are happy which means the family is happy and that is something certainly now more than ever we really appreciate and truly value. Thank you Wickey for helping us through lockdown parenting with a toddler at home.
Wickey kindly gifted us the MultiFlyer climbing frame with Wooden roof with no obligation to post. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. I wouldn’t write about anything that I wouldn’t recommend. I can whole heartily say that this climbing frame has been a game changer for us and is helping us through lockdown and will continue to be a help with hours of safe and enjoyable entertainment. Do check out their other Swing and slide sets.