I think ds actually has ants in his pants.

[Pinkjenny]

Ds is almost 10mo. He never keeps still. Never. Apart from when he's asleep.

He is cruising the furniture and pulling himself up on anything he can find. Even when I am holding him he tries to climb up me.

I secretly adore the fact that he is such a little livewire, but jaysus, it's exhausting.

Any tips on how to amuse a worm of this nature?

Oh god, I remember this phase. Totally Exhausting.

My DS is a bit older now (22mo) but at 10mo he loved:

• crawling through tunnels, tents and a large box that I turned into a 'Wendy House' for him by cutting doors and windows in it.

• swimming (OK, splashing about in the tots pool) - about the only thing guaranteed to tire him out so we went lots.

• once he is walking, pushing trolleys, walkers etc around (sounds as if your DS is only weeks away from this - it makes a huge difference).

• sitting in front of a kitchen cupboard, emptying out all the packets and cartons of food (obviously no glass or cans) onto the floor.

• knocking down towers of wooden bricks and putting them in and out of plastic pots and bowls.

• learning to put lids on and off pots and saucepans.

• banging said saucepans with wooden spoon very loudly.

Btw, I'm not a complete scrooge - he did have some expensive toys but never really played with them much. Much preferred to use whatever I was trying to cook or clean with.

Excellent tips, thank you. We got all of dd's toys down from the loft. He doesn't take a blind bit of notice of them, apart from Dancing Po, he likes to bash him on the head and make him say 'Weeeeeeeeee!' over and over again.

I feel you pain! My DS is exactly the same and is only interested in stuff that is specifically not a toy! The kitchen cupboards can keep him amused for a while, as can our CD shelves . He's also obsessed by wires, and can now pull himself up by his arms, with feet 6 inches off the floor, to see what delights i've tried to move away from him on our sidebards, etc.

To keep him semi-still in the kitchen so I can do stuff I sit him in front of the cupbaord with the colanders etc, and have just chucked his plastic weaning bowls, cups etc in there.

I can't do it here, but at MIL's house we can set up the sofa cusions so he can scoot up and down them on and off the sofa.

We've got a couple of walkers but he's not too fussed. He can walk about 6ft now unaided but with him as long as he's upright his main goal seems to be getting at things, or getting into places he shouldn't be (we found him sitting on the sideboard the other day........) rather than actually walking to places!

I also try and take him somewhere at least once a day where he can scoot around, be it the park, kiddie warehouse, baby toddler groups.

Good luck!