At my wits end with our 9 month old

[quillfram]

Our DS is driving me potty. I’m worried.
He’s nothing like our other two sons.
From the moment he wakes up, he’s whining. The only time he’s ever happy is if he’s out in the carrier for a walk, the pram sometimes but not for very long, or he’s crawling around on the floor able to go where he likes.
He screams if you try and put him in his pen. In his bouncer. Will sit briefly in his high chair but not for very long. He seems totally intolerant of boredom. He’s strong, and can shunt his highchair back when he’s strapped in and done with being in it.
He’s very social and loves watching his brothers rough-house about - he smiles and laughs.
But I’m worried about his attention span and his neediness. Is this a sign of something to worry about? Like Adhd perhaps?
I cannot keep him entertained, I have to spend a lot of the day taking him out for walks as he hates being at home unless he’s on the floor all over the house which isn’t the safest.
Am I overthinking? Is this totally normal? Most toys I give him he looks at briefly, then chucks on the floor. He isn’t even that interested in being held and walked around now, something which did used to help - he’s often struggling to get free and down to the ground. Am I doing something wrong? Our other two boys were nothing like this.
Stressed! And absolutely exhausted and surrounded by overdue chores, because where in the day I’ve just described have I managed to get anything done?!
Thanks.

If you’ve already had 2 DS avd this one is different and something about his behaviour is bothering you then it’s probably worth investigating although much too early to assess for ADHD.

One thing you could do is this simple progress checker. If it says he needs some support then let us know and we can suggest the next steps to take

I would try to go with what suits him, as far as possible in a busy household. Are there any rooms that can reasonably be made safe for him to crawl about and explore?

If he's in a gross motor exploring phase, can you improvise baby soft play/baby obstacle course? Cushions to crawl over/around, chair to go under, pop-up tunnel or large cardboard box to crawl through, etc. Big ball to push and chase? A hallway can be good for this, and often relatively easy to baby-proof.

I would say this sounds pretty normal from my experience. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere babies/children have the attention span of roughly 1 minute per year! Neither of my two would tolerate any kind of container, we had every single bouncer/swing/highchair/playpen buggy on the market, all completely useless, they just wanted attention and to move! I’ve always said my absolute least favourite stage with both of mine was the crawling stage, can’t really go to the park or soft play as they can walk, their frustrated because they want to walk and can’t, can’t talk or communicate well so just whine. Much better when they can walk and you can toddle about the park or play in the garden. Mines are 5 (shes actually a very very calm child with a great attention span now and she was the worst at this age actually! And appears completely typical in her development) my youngest is 2.5 obviously still young but meeting his milestones, and appears for the moment at least typical.

ADHD, really? He is 9 months old. All children are different are they not?

I know what you mean but my first has ADHD and as a baby they were just “wired”. Didn’t sleep much, had to be always moving when they were. They were full on almost 24/7.

So I’m in no way suggesting the LO has ADHD but it might he a little disingenuous to totally dismiss the OP’s concerns, especially when she has 2 older DC to compare with.

I think he sounds like a normal baby and perhaps your elder sons were more on the placid side? He wants to learn how to walk and run not sit in a high chair or play pen and learn how to tolerate boredom 😮. Make your house or at least some of it baby proof and find active things to do with him. I expect he spends far more time being logged around after the other two than they did.