Top activities for 13 month old?

[springbelle]

My DD is nearly 14 months old. She is not yet walking by herself but is cruising, walking with her push along walker and climbing on and off furniture. She crawls at the speed of light!

She plays with her toys but becomes distracted easily (is this normal and not a sign of ADHD?). She appears to get bored quickly.

I have been taking her to a baby/toddler group since she was 5 months old which she has always loved but now she doesn't seem to want to stay still for even a second so am looking for something different.

I was thinking some sort of gym/soft play type thing? What about music and dancing?
What activities did you do/do you do with your little ones at this age?

I live in the Blackheath area of SE London if anyone knows of specific classes/activities.

Thanks in advance from a very tired mummy :)

They seem to have the attention span of a goldfish at that age You wait till your DD walks and you have to start chasing her around!

At that development point we were mainly still using baby groups, but mostly those that had a reasonable size playmat for DS to explore.

We had also made our front room crawler safe so he could explore and we could sit down and watch rather than being on our feet all the time.

Hi Springbelle

I used to live in Greenwich and when my ds was that age I used to bring him to Tumble tots which was held in Blackheath (KIngswood Hall). The Arches leisure centre in Greenwich also has softplay for under 5's about 3 times a week which is also quite good.
I tried Monkey Music too which he liked for a while-these classes were also in Greenwich but there may be one nearer you if you check out the website. I also spent a lot of time in the playground/sandpit in Greenwich park. Hope that helps. The short attention span is normal, they are v curious at that age which is a good thing!

PS
I have a 16mth and I put some toys in boxes out of his reach so when he gets bored of something I take the next box out, keeps it fresh instead of having full access to everything all the time!

We have a similar strategy, we have a big wooden box with most of the small to medium toys in it.

DS gets choose 3 or 4 items to take out at the start of the day, after that the box is put away until bedtime where he "help" put the items back.

A couple of items are favorites and get taken out most days, but some of the others get rotated.

Yes we do that - several boxes of assorted toys. Bring a new one out when their attention wanders - DS will give a good 20 minutes to the contents of a new box.

He also loves a bit of warm water in the washing up bowl and some spoons and pots to play with. Put it on a towel to avoid too much mess, and be prepared to get them dry clothes after!

We also go to the library to pull books off shelves read. He loves crawling around and interacting with the other kids.

There are a coupl of toddler soft plays near us (kids under 5 only) which we use if we have to get out of the house.

We also spend a lot of time at the park - they boy loves to slide

When my DD was that age all toys were 'minutes of fun' instead of the advertised 'guaranteed hours of fun. TBH - even now at 2.4 years old I have to come across a toy that captures her attention for hours at a time...

When she was about 13 months, a small slide we used indoors was a big hit and also a stuffed horse perfect in size for her to 'ride on'.

Thanks all for your input! That's given me some food for thought. It's good to know they are all like this at this age :)

joh75 - thanks for the local tips. I will book a taster session for tumble tots and monkey music and get myself down to the arches leisure centre. We have been swimming there but we haven't tried the softplay yet.