Keep my 17 week old DD entertained & nurturing her development

[JayEll]

My DD is 17 weeks old. She’s a sweet happy baby but lately I’ve been worried about her being bored. She used to love being on her play mat with hanging toys/ rattles/ musical toys etc.. but now I feel as if she’s getting bored with it. I’ll sit and play with her but as shes being awake more often it’s getting more difficult to think of things to keep her entertained. She likes watching coco melon, I don’t mind her watching it a little bit as she loves it but I don’t want her to watch tv all the time as I want her to do things that encourage her development.

Can anyone please make some suggestions to a first time mummy, what I can do to entertain her whilst helping her development?

Congratulations on your baby!

If you don't already, maybe try introducing a daily walk or exploration of an outside space? There's lots to do and see for a baby, so it's great for sensory development. It doesn't need to be anything fancy, even a walk round the block can be interesting - different coloured and textured leaves, flowers to smell, bricks and railings to touch (eg "rough" and "smooth").

Maybe look for local activity groups at libraries etc, too. They can be great for social contacts for you too, and for getting information on what else is going on in your area.

At 17 weeks, she might still be a bit young, but once she can sit with support she could 'help' you with things like food preparation (eg moving her hands in different ingredients and feeling the different textures), laundry (eg she can hold things and play at passing them between you both), etc. It's not really helping and actually usually creates more mess but it can be fun anyway.

You could join a toy library, which would mean you can try lots of different things to see what she likes without a big cost upfront.

Pop her in the buggy, or better in a sling facing outwards and talk to her. I got so used to talking to dd2 in the sling I found myself out in the supermarket talking to myself: "now, shall we get more tomatoes today, or not?" 🤣

Thank you!

We do already go on walks, she loves them

I've just moved to a new area so I do need to look into the baby groups & it would be helpful to make some mummy friends.

She is, but I look forward to doing all these things when she is old enough & I’m sure she’ll love them too

I’ve never heard of a toy library before, I’ll definitely look into that! Sounds awesome

Thank you again!

I'm guilty of that too! 😂

I’ll try putting her in the sling more as opposed to the buggy

thank you!