17 mo and play: what do yours do?

[drivingmisscrazy]

DD is 17 months old and lovely. She has a good vocabulary, loves her soft toys and books, dances, can play with a ball, loves water games, enjoys making piles, putting things in and out of boxes etc. She is very into flowers, insects, etc and knows the names for some of them (spider, bee, fly)

But she is completely and utterly uninterested in things like shape sorters, puzzles and just can't work out that a key type thing opens a particular toy. Her fine motor skills are fine - I think - she feeds herself with a spoon, can stack blocks (although again, only if it's suggested to her). She can scribble too. Her favourite thing at the moment is giving drinks to her soft toys and pushing her doll around in a little buggy. I assume this is completely normal and she just isn't interested in puzzles and shapes just yet? I just seem to be surrounded by tales of babies who could match shapes at 12 months etc etc. I do try to do things like simple puzzles with her, but she just gets up and walks off like she thinks they are really boring and stupid (she might have a point, I suppose!)

What things do yours like doing, and should i worry about her lack of interest in these things (I kind of know the answer to that!!)

She sounds a bit like my eldest ds who is now 3. He has always loved books, tv (I limit it obviously) and imaginative play. He will sit for ages with a chopstick (!) saying it's a telescope and talking non-stop about what he can see etc, does loads of role-play type stuff, loves to 'help' around the house and has a persona for this 'Ed' - it's a name he calls himself when he's helping dh. Ed is nothing like his real name and is a big man! When in role as Ed, ds will not call dh 'Daddy' but always calls him 'Mark'! No idea where these names come from as we have no friends with these names! He is so funny and does a hilarious (to me anyway!) deep voice as 'Ed'.

He is very imaginative and talkative and not really interested in puzzles etc. He can do them and will do them but only if prompted - he very rarely asks for them.

I'm sure your dd has, or will have, the ability to do them but she has different strengths at the moment. She sounds fab, btw, and quite advanced in terms of imaginative play.

lecce your DS sounds adorable! thanks for the reply. I'm just curious about the fact that these interests are apparent so early - her cousin who is 6 months older loves puzzles and is very very good at them!

She sounds fine. DD is 17 mo, too and while she'll play with puzzle pieces, she will look at them and talk to them (animal shapes), but can't manage to fit them in the right places yet.

All kids are diferent and all that.

winny well, quite. It's just amazing that their tastes and interests are distinct so early on. I know she's fine, was more interested on what other kids of her age are doing/enjoy/find dull etc as I don't really know much about children other than DD!

I reread yur OP, actually my DD sounds very similar to yours, in that she's not very interested in shape sorters etc, while still having good motor skills.It's lovely that yours already knows insect names, how sweet. Mine has only few words, but that's because she's raised in a trilinguar environment, I think.I also don't do that much of structured play time with her, mostly we go out to the park or sand pit or to play ball. Other than that she'll play with teddies or blocks (mostly Duplo, she'll stack wooden ones sometimes) or will follow me around the house and try to help, by reorganizing the contents of the larder, for example .

they do sound similar - dd all of a sudden very into the herb and spice jars ; I too do very little that's structured with her - I figure she has the rest of her life to be structured in. Wow, a trilingual environment - which languages? I know it takes multi-lingual kids a bit longer, but it really stands to them later. I have a friend with a 2 year old who just switches between English and Irish often in the same sentence! It's pretty cool

Polish (me), English (DP) and French (DS)- so no choice iyswim. I do feel a bit sorry for her when she shows me her teddy and says 'bear' and I'm like 'mis'(Polish) and then DS will come and say 'oh, t'a un petit ourson'. Must be pretty confusing for her, but I refuse to raise another child who will not speak my mother tongue (like I did with DS, who speaks only English and French, but because we're in France French became his first language).

I wouldn't worry - she'll just take it in her stride and then will find it really strange when she meets kids who only speak one language. I think she's incredibly lucky - one of the greatest regrets of my life is that I am essentially a monoglot (I speak passable French and can do a decent translation from Latin ), but I have a lot of bilingual friends, all of whom learn other languages pretty easily if they choose to.

Am also secretly glad to find someone else who doesn't do anything very structured with their dc - I just let her potter and footle about. Sometimes we read a book, or draw something, but mostly we just muck about. She learns plenty (read something recently about how all children learn about shapes from things around them - i.e. babies on the savannah don't have shape sorters, and they're fine!). But I do occasionally fret and worry that I should be a bit more proactive with her - but she's starting to be imaginative and knows how to amuse herself. These are great life skills IMHO