parents of young kids - how much do you use your yard?

[Anonymous]

considering making an offer on a house with a VERY small yard and have two young kids (toddler and baby). how much will we miss not having a big yard for them to run around it? fwiw, lots of parks nearby.

[Anonymous]

I have a similar setup with one toddler. It's fine; we end up using the local playground (a couple blocks away) much more.

[Anonymous]

I think this depends on how active they are. When we moved from not having a yard to having one with two active boys (at the time 2 and 3) everything was immediately easier. Now at 4 and 5, its still so much easier to have them go out there and run around than having to take them somewhere. We go to the park a ton too, but a grown up has to go with them. In the yard, they can mostly be watched from the house now and do things like sprinkler, etc.

[Anonymous]

We have a small house with a small yard that is near some good parks/playgrounds. When our kids were toddlers, the small yard was probably fine. In younger elementary school, we would have loved to have a bigger yard. Now that they are getting into middle school and beyond, they want to meet their friends out at parks and such. Anyway, I think it depends on the stage of life, but I guarantee you that there will be a stretch of years where you wish you have a bigger yard. But I do believe that, generally, it is nice to have the kids go to parks where they can meet other people, as opposed to living in a place with big yards and no parks nearby, where the kids have to invite people over or be invited over. A very different way of interacting with the community at large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:considering making an offer on a house with a VERY small yard and have two young kids (toddler and baby). how much will we miss not having a big yard for them to run around it? fwiw, lots of parks nearby.

Two kids, 3 years apart with a smallish yard. We had a climbing fort with a slide that got occasional use. Much more time was spent at nearby parks/woods. Definitely wasn't an issue.

[Anonymous]

I still use the yard daily with my 8 year old. Front yard though, back yard is for the dogs (and thus has risk of dog poop)

[Anonymous]

I have three kids-1, 3, and 5. We use our backyard for hours almost daily. During Covid, I was so grateful to have the yard. Now, I send the kids out there every afternoon-they have a swing set, climbing some, see saw, digging area, and play kitchen. The backyard amd the outside toys keep them busy, active, and out in fresh air.

[Anonymous]

Half acre lot with big back and front yard. Trampoline, play set and badminton set in the backyard. It’s used every inch for our 9 year old and her friends.

[Anonymous]

Big yard (quarter acre maybe?), kids use it but not enough to justify how long it takes to maintain in the growing season. Wish we had a smaller one.

[Anonymous]

We live in DC and have a good sized yard. The kids use it sometimes but not a ton. The like playing in the snow there and sometimes in the spring/fall, but mosquitos are so bad around here it’s unusable most of the year. They love playgrounds and that’s where we go most

[Anonymous]

We have a very small yard but a park around the corner. Occasionally someone will have an awesome kid party in their yard and I feel jealous, but ultimately the trade off of maintenance time is not worth it for me. I like to garden and we have plenty of room for that.

If I were able to pay for weekly yard service and considerable hardscaping, including a big screened porch and fans for mosquitoes, it would be more important to me to have a bigger lot.

[Anonymous]

We have a small yard with playground very close. I wish we had a bigger yard though because my kids (6,4) want to be outside after school but the yard is too small to play very much. So I have to go with them to a bigger area since they are too young to go unsupervised. All that to say, think 3-5-7 years down the road. There will be a time when you want them in a fenced space so they can play and you can do something in the house.

[Anonymous]

We live in a city and don't have a yard. We also live across from a park that has two playgrounds. The kids are there 4-6 days a week.

[Anonymous]

They're out there all. the. time. We have an awesome playset, sandbox and other backyard toys. Once it's warmer we'll break out the sprinkler and kiddie pool. It's like adding an extra 2k sq feet to our house.

[Anonymous]

Hardly at all. This is DC. The weather is nice only two short seasons per year.