Can a 4 month old baby play alone?

[Sistersisterrr]

I am at home with my 4 month old baby and feel like I’m constantly on the go and trying to entertain them and exhausted. We do walks, classes etc - all naps are contact (trying to move to the cot) and play time on a mat / mobile.

When my husband is in charge he makes it look easier - baby in bouncer facing away from the tv or a cloth over the mobile so the baby can’t see the screen and he chills and watches cricket / football. He says our baby needs to learn to be independent.

Is that lazy or would it be OK if I did it too? I don’t just mean for 10 minutes while I do a load of washing but to watch a full tv show? I’d feel so guilty but not sure if I am being OTT.

Mine sat in her Dad’s arms at 2 weeks old and “watched” some important football final.
At 4 months a bit of watching the cricket will be fine.

Think about how we evolved - babies just hang out with adults but the adults would have been too busy to play with them all the time.

Babies learn by observing their surroundings and watching what people do and how they behave. Everything is interesting to them! I think they can get stressed out by being too much the centre of things.

All the baby groups etc are really there to break down isolation for the mums, or to make women feel they're meeting some kind of goals like you would at work. All of which is fine if you like it, but really babies are happy just hanging out.

Having the telly on ALL the time is bad though, babies need to learn that communication is reciprocal so you talk to them and they answer back etc. But a bit of time chilling with the telly on is ok.

Our baby loved a Dutch ball at that age, he's 6 months now. I found that popping his Playmat down on the floor and giving him something interesting could distract him for about 15-20mins. I rotate his toys so he's not playing with the same things every day to keep them interesting. His absolute fave at that age was a Dutch ball hung above his Playmat so he could spin it and explore the different textures. I'd also let him play with plastic/wooden kitchen utensils. I think around 15-20mins attention span is about normal for that age. I just did contact naps because he slept much longer on me than in his cot and just made sure I had the TV remote beside me so I could watch a show during his naps. We try not to give screen time purely because he's obsessed! He would ignore absolutely everything and everyone and just sit mesmerised by the TV so tbh we tend to just use it now when he's asleep. Playing for us just really looked like doing some singing, or just narrating what he was doing or making silly noises and giving kisses. It's fine for them to just do their own thing for a bit as long as you're supervising, they're safe and you can respond if they need you. I also found that by any 5.5 months my wee one was way happier on his tummy so he was really happy to just try and roll and move about for longer periods so it gets easier.

Same 🤣

My first had an awful lot of Buffy in the early months 😂