Playing with bubs - how much time ?

This is probably a tricky question to answer but...how much time to you spend playing with your babies (i.e. focussing solely on them)when they are awake?

How long will your little ones (aged around the 10mth mark) stay interested in an activity if they are playing independently?

Do you ever leave them in a room on their own or do you take them around the house with you if you need to do anything in another room?

Erm.... how long I spend playing with Ella each day varies a fair bit, and to be honest, I don't have a clue what it adds up to!  I don't count taking her out to coffee groups of friend's places as playing with her, as my focus is all over the place, not solely on her.  It doesn't seem like I play with her a great deal now that I think about it.  But I don't hop on the computer or sew or make anything crafty unless she's having a nap (which is why it takes me so flippin long to get anything done!) so I can't be doing that bad! 

Before she was mobile, I could go hang a couple of loads of laundry and check the mailbox and Ella would quite happily entertain herself on the floor inside... she's still happily do that now but she's constantly making her way over to the speakers to poke them, her books to chew them, the DVD player to turn it on and off, on and off... and the CD's to rummage through.  Point is, she's usually happy playing with some toys by herself for half an hour or more easily, and does so while I cook and tidy up.  But I can no longer leave the room with her in it, unless it's a fleeting trip.  Our house is a half-finished DIY-disaster and I'm too worried about her getting to the flaking lead paint or the food cupboards that I literally can't kiddy-lock. 

When Emma Rose was 10 months old, I was working from home and spent probably two hours a day playing with her (reading, singing, trying to interest her in toys, etc). But as far as time spent focusing solely on her was concerned, we always had heaps of what my mother calls "extended interactions" -- when she was in the bath, or I was feeding her, or changing her, or we were taking walks and I was babbling away.

10-month-olds have quite short attention spans and I found it depended on the activity. Em was never a good TV-watcher, so Baby Einstein and the like weren't my babysitters because she wouldn't stay engaged with them. (That's both a blessing and a curse!) Things like rolling a ball could go for five or 10 minutes, but nothing ever occupied her for half-an-hour or more. She'd go from object to object and toy to toy without any discernible pattern. The one thing that DID occupy her for a good long time was emptying her bookshelves... And then mine. Sigh...

As for leaving her alone in a room, I've never done this for a very long time because she tends to "get into things". When she couldn't move far (before she could roll or crawl) I could put her in her Bumbo or lay her on the floor under her play gym and put the laundry on or start the dishes. I'd pop my head back in every few minutes or if it got "too quiet". She's always been very vocal, so if she started grumping or crying, I'd know she wasn't okay on her own.

If I needed to be in another room for a long time, I used to put her in her baby swing, which she usually fell asleep in. Or I'd take her with me to whatever room I needed to be in and use the baby gate to keep her corralled. But it depended on what I was doing and how happy she was on her own (without my 100% attention) -- if she was having a good time with her toys, I'd leave her alone but pop back in to check every few minutes.

FionaS wrote: Do mothers of non-mobile babies find you need to change the toys etc very frequently to keep them entertained?

Yea I have a couple of boxes of toys and I change them quite regularly. At 10mos my eldest would sit and roll. Mostly sit with toys and that was it LOL.

Pretty much....though usually Maddie changes the scenery herself hence I have to go looking for her. Right now I can only hear her for example....think she has wombled off to her bedroom....hmmmmm.

Oh I can't wait until elle can move! At the mo she has to ask (aka grizzle at me) for everything...when she can move for herself it will be wonderful!

Yeah I've been tricking her into tummy time e.g. by putting her there while she eats her biscuit (she lasted 10mins and didn't drop any crumbs..lol!), or on the floaty thingy at the pool. She shuffles backwards but doesn't seem to realise that she has legs. She just wants to walk holding our hands alllllllllllllll the time, even in the bath. She can stand alone and walk with only one hand of support but gets scared.

Today my MIL looked after her for 1.5 hours so I could have some time out and apparently she didn't really grizzle at all. My MIL played with her the entire time though and showed her lots of new toys. It made me wonder if I am **supposed** to play with her all the time. I already spend most of the day walking her around!

Thanks Toni I actually do routinely put things out of her reach and I don't get them for her. I also don't respond to tantrums nor immediately to grizzles. Elle does play independently (she has been for about 25mins now) and enjoys her time to herself sometimes. She grizzles all the time so if we never responded to her grizzles we would virtually never be able to do anything with / for her. I perservere with tummy time even though she absolutely yells at me but I know it's important so I ignore the crying until it's totally out of hand.

I do definately understand re: responding to and hence encouraging grizzling and I check myself for this all the time to ensure we are not doing it. She's been this way since 2 weeks of age so I doubt she learned it from our responses.

I fully agree though...gotta be careful not to respond to the grizzling.

Edited to add that I made this thread as I leave Elle to play on her own (with mne in the room) a lot of the time, if not most of the time and I was wondering if I wasn't doing enough with her). Over the past couple of weeks we do spend quite a bit of time walking around the house but she always has periods of 20mins or so of playing on her own between walking sessions.

Edited by FionaS

Toni - you mentione your PAFT lady...a few of my friends with late crawlers have one of these...should I ask my plunket nurse...we haven't been offered anything as they all say her development is fine even though she doesn't roll or crawl.