toddlers

8 things to do in Copenhagen with a toddler

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The thing about going on holiday with a toddler, is that no matter where you go or what you do, it’ll still be hard work. Holidays are no longer about rest, they’re about change. They’re about doing your usual billion parenting tasks somewhere else. They’re about picking up your family, going somewhere new, and making lovely memories together – and ideally paying somebody else to cook at least one of your meals each day, and not having to think about the washing up.

We went to Copenhagen from 1 – 6 July 2019 and had an ace time. We were keen to go somewhere that wasn’t swelteringly hot at this time of year, as that can be tricky to manage with a small person in tow. And we also wanted there to be lots of fun stuff to do, so this got a double tick.

I found blogs written by other parents who have been to Denmark with children really helpful, so I thought I’d share what we enjoyed too, in case you fancy taking a trip. I recommend it.

Amager Beach Park

Yes, there’s a beach. I was surprised too! We stayed in Amager, which though not in central Copenhagen, is still very handy for getting to and from the airport and around the city. And a particularly cool element of the area is that it has a beach.

We went on our first day, which was a bit on the windy side, and we were all a bit tired and hungry, but that says nothing about the beach and everything about our ability to plan.

We still had a nice wander around and a look out to sea, and I’m sure that on a calmer day and with full stomachs it would make for a really great trip out. My toddler had a good time jumping about in the sand, because that’s fun whatever the weather.

The LEGO store

We did the next four activities in one day, starting with a visit to Copenhagen’s LEGO store, because, well, when in Rome.

I’d seen a visit to the store recommended on another blog and I’m so glad we went because our daughter loved it. Of course she did – it’s brightly coloured, there are giant (to her, anyway) LEGO figures to point at, and she could touch and play and run around, which is pretty much all she wants from life.

I thought it was brilliant too. Long time readers will know that I’m not exactly a Star Wars enthusiast (my first ever Star Wars film viewing was embarrassingly recent), but I still thought the LEGO stormtrooper, R2-D2 and C-3PO (yes I had to google the names of the last two) were pretty cool. And I liked Nyhavn Harbour just as much in miniature as I did in real life.

All in all it made for a very fun 20 minute stop.

Hans Christian Andersen Fairytale House

About a five minute walk from the LEGO store is this slightly creepy, but actually very sweet and fun little fairytale house. Again, it felt only right to engage with something so very Danish whilst in Denmark, so in we went.

Right next to Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, this is a small interactive museum that takes you through the life and stories of Hans Christian Andersen. We went with a speedy 19 month old, so anything that didn’t light up or play music failed to get her attention. That meant we passed through the first few historical-focused bits pretty quickly as they were too dark to catch her eye.

But when we got to the sections devoted to each story, she was much more engaged. There were buttons to press and figures that moved (the ballerina she’s pointing at above was a favourite) and she seemed to find it all very entertaining.

The adults were all childishly amused by the proud-looking naked emperor in the Emperor’s New Clothes exhibit whose reflection somehow magically became clothed in the mirror, so that was 180 DKK well spent (it’s 60 DKK each to get in).

They warn you on the door that it doesn’t take long to get around the house, as it’s only a small place, but we still thought it was worth it. You don’t do anything for very long with a small person anyway, do you, so another 20 minutes or so of fun was enough for us before lunch.

Torvehallerne Food Market

I absolutely bloody love a food market on holiday. Can’t get enough of them. We walked over here post LEGO/fairytale excitement and after feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amazing choice of food on offer, we settled on a couple of salmon and broccoli quiches and ate them outside.

It definitely would have been better for us if we’d been able to find a highchair, as our daughter became understandably keen to escape our laps and tear around, but it was still fun to be there and to eat tasty food in the sunshine.

I have this thing for purchasing nectarines whilst on holiday – are they juicier abroad, somehow? – so I bagged us six from the market before we left and then shared one a day with our toddler in the afternoon whilst we recovered from a day out with an episode of Peppa Pig. It became a lovely, if sticky, little ritual.

Tivoli Gardens

After lunch at the market and with a sleeping toddler in the pram, we headed into Tivoli. Not your average theme park, Tivoli doesn’t just have rides and roller coasters, it’s also home to beautiful gardens, which are ideal for a sit or a toddle around.

My husband took the opportunity to go on ‘The Demon’ roller coaster with our friend whilst our daughter slept and I pretended to be sorry not to go on it too (the constant highs and lows of parenting are enough of an adrenaline rush for me nowadays).

When our toddler woke up, it was great to take her for a walk around Tivoli so she could take it all in. There are rides that are suitable for little ones, but we didn’t feel confident she was ready for that kind of thing, so we just stuck to strolling for now, which was lovely. It was an ideal way to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon before we headed home for tea.

National Aquarium Denmark, Den Blå Planet

Aquariums are ace for small children and I thought this one was particularly great. It’s the biggest in Northern Europe and set in a beautifully designed, modern building overlooking the sea.

There’s so much to see, from hammerhead sharks, stingrays and turtles, to tropical fish, piranhas and – my personal favourite – sea otters. I love the tanks that come low enough for toddlers to see everything without having to be picked up by an adult, so they can be free to point and wave and move around as much as they like.

The tunnel through ‘The Ocean’ is a particular highlight for everybody, and our daughter also loved playing in the toy submarine and sitting in a giant neon (fake) sea anemone – because who wouldn’t?

As a Brit who’s used to pretty crappy food options at large-scale child-focused attractions, I assumed there would be nothing worth eating on offer at the aquarium, but I was wrong. The restaurant is great – we sat outside overlooking the sea and ate fishcakes and chips. All round, an excellent day out.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

This is the coolest art gallery I’ve ever been to. Not many come with their own sculpture park and a sea view, but now that I’ve been here, I wish they all did. If you have time for a day outside of the city, this is definitely worth a trip. (Take a train to Humlebæk. It took us about an hour.)

From a toddler perspective, the grounds are definitely the best bit. There’s lots of space to run around, huge trees, and interesting sculptures to look at and hide behind. I only wish it hadn’t rained when we were there so we could have spent more time outside.

There’s a great café which, again, sells nice food for everyone, including delicious coconut macarons I can’t stop thinking about.

Taking a toddler around the gallery is fun too as there’s lots to see and long corridors to wander through, but I must admit it was easier when she went into her pram for a nap and we could have a proper look around without worrying she’d somehow accidentally get us thrown out.

So I recommend going when nap time is on the horizon so you can have a nice dose of grown up culture time too. There’s an exhibition by Pipilotti Rist on at the moment and we absolutely loved it.

Copenhagen Zoo

We had such a fun time at the zoo. We’d never taken our daughter to a big zoo before, so it was very special for all of us. And not only does this one have every creature you’d normally hope to see, it also has polar bears. I honestly don’t know which of us was more excited. There’s a great enclosure where they swim right in front of you and over your heads and it’s amazing.

Other highlights included the wonderful elephant house (until one of them trumpeted so loud that it scared the living daylights out of all of us and proved that the noise I’ve led my daughter to believe they make is way too cute), the lions, the chimpanzees and the Savanna, which is home to giraffes, zebras and rhinos.

And once again the food was lovely. Honestly, UK attractions really need to up their game. We ate at FOLK and shared fishcakes and meatballs. Seeing as we obviously couldn’t go out in the evenings and engage in the more grown up culinary delights Copenhagen had to offer, it was a genuine joy to find such nice food to eat during days out.

So in summary, Copenhagen is great. We did a lot, so we were exhausted by the time we got back to London, but it was worth it.

If you go, I hope you have a wonderful time too. And if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to get in touch!

This much I know about toddlers

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That when job applications ask if you speak any other languages, you should be able to get credit for speaking ‘Conversational toddler’.

That preparing a toddler for nursery, transporting them there, dropping them off and then negotiating the buggy shed requires so much energy and generates such volumes of sweat that it should be recognised as an Olympic sport.

That toddlers make you so attuned to risk that even when there are no children around and you see a small object you still feel the need to warn everybody in the vicinity NOT TO PUT IT IN THEIR MOUTH.

That trying to get a toddler to wear a sunhat may be the hardest work you’ll ever do.

That the volume of books you read to toddlers about farms and zoos highlight the gaps in your education when it comes to animal noises. If there’s a Facebook group dedicated to achieving consensus about the sound we should all make to represent a giraffe, I’d like to join it.

That toddlers throw so much food on the floor and you have so little time to yourself that before long you start hoovering up every damp, chewed up morsel and calling it dinner.

That there is no ‘correct’ way to help a toddler eat, sleep, or do anything really, because they’re human beings, not robots. You just have to find a way that works them and for you and resist the temptation to compare it with anyone else’s.

That the confidence and sense of entitlement with which a toddler will steal food off your plate/out of your hand/straight from your mouth is nothing short of inspiring.

That toddlers teach you more about who you really are than any personality test ever could. Mine sighs like me, dances like me, and becomes impossible to communicate with when she’s overtired, just like me.

That toddler demands are generally pretty reasonable. The trouble is that, because they can’t really communicate yet, the process of getting you to understand those demands can feel somewhat unreasonable. I find it helps to remember that it’s the situation that’s difficult, not the person.

That a toddler’s absolute faith in you to be there to save them should they fall off the sofa, misjudge their ability to balance on the bed, or regret climbing into a cupboard is both touching and terrifying in equal measure.

That toddlers make simple things suddenly seem magical. There’s a metal elephant in our garden, left by the previous owner. I’ve always thought it was fine but my daughter thinks it’s AMAZING, so now I do too. A toddler’s ability to get excited about small things is contagious and good for the soul.

That toddlers are little people learning to make decisions. And when that decision is to give you a cuddle, it feels like the best present you’ve ever received.

…But when it’s to empty the entire contents of your purse across a restaurant floor, it feels like maybe letting them look through your handbag was a mistake.

That toddlers are here to teach you that the answer to the question “But how much mess can one small person really make in this house with a yogurt anyway?” is: So much that you’ll wonder if it would be easier to just move out and start again than to even attempt to try and clear up.

That toddler-care involves a lot of jobs: feeding, dressing, changing, washing, translating, lifting, feeding some more. And it’s easy to get caught up in the tasks and lose sight of the little person you’re doing them for, particularly when you’re tired. I’m trying my best not to.

That being the parent of a toddler is the reason I’m now incapable of walking passed a dog without saying “Doggy!” Or that’s what I tell people anyway.

That when it comes to books, toddlers have two settings: 1. I will allow you to read one sentence from this book, close it so quickly that you get a paper cut and then select another; and 2. This is my favourite book in the world, please read it again and again and again until one of us passes out. (It’ll be you).

That there is no need to have a toddler and a gym membership. All you need to do is tell your child that you’re going to put suntan lotion on them and by the time you’ve chased them down and applied it, you’ll have done all your exercise for the year.

That toddlers have the warmest, softest little hands, and that walking about with my daughter’s in mine is my favourite thing to do.

That, if you let yourself, you could spend every second you’re responsible for a toddler feeling scared, worried, exhausted and confused.

But that it’s better for everyone if you focus instead on how joyful, love-filled, and fun this job can be, and just keep on doing your best.