Entertaining baby who doesn’t nap

[maloney123]

Can I have some tips please from mums of little ones who don’t nap for very long on how to keep my baby occupied?! She’s 5 months old and rarely naps more than an hour or two through the day. I don’t want to leave the TV / peppa pig etc on for her to watch but I’m finding it so hard to entertain her all day!

You don’t have to ‘entertain her’ you can just live life doing stuff at that age and they watch/enjoy.

What @FTEngineerM said, just get on with things. My ds is 3 and he really does need entertaining now, it's relentless! Don't throw your little baby time away!

If you don't entertain her, she may nap more.

But yes agree with PP, they don't need entertaining, just 'do' life. She can go shopping with you, sit in a bouncy chair while you cook, 'help' sort washing (play with a sock while you do the rest), play on the floor while you have lunch etc. Also trips to the library, parent and baby groups, walks in the buggy to the park, feeding the ducks, swimming etc

Mine wasn't a napper! Still isn't much of one really (actually..just posted a threat on this haha). But 5months they're learning how to pick stuff up and that sort of thing.

Just play! Mine wasn't interested in TV at that age.

Blocks. Rings. Soft toys. Walks in a carrier thing and show them the world!!

Thanks everyone! She’s really easily bored which is part of the problem… So far today we’ve done tummy time and playing on the play mat, put her in her sling while I put washing away and tidied up, time in her bouncer, read one of her little books together, and a little nap. And there’s still two hours until baby sensory class this afternoon!!

Mine has never been much of a napper. I used to sit him with different toys round him while i had breakfast or got ready then go for a carrier walk. Book time, music time. He loved the jumperoo at that time too. Sit him in the highchair to watch me in the kitchen. In the afternoon i would take him out for a longer walk in the pram. That's about it really, didn't put the TV on for him at all until he was older!

How many naps is she having? Are you sure she's bored and not tired? Maximum awake time at that age is 2/3 hours

What kind of thing does she do when she’s bored?

Everything is so new at 5m it’s sort of hard to be bored. I used to put DS1 in the shnuggle bath next to the sink and he watched me wash up. I’d throw in the odd wooden spoon/plastic scoop thing and he’d sit there for ages. Oooooo a sponge. Oooooo bubbles. Oooooo a potato. 😂

I had a micro napper. Was down to 1 x 28 minutes a day by 11 months. She got used to watching me get on with jobs, lots of walks, grocery shopping etc.

DD2 is similarly short napper, but gets lots of entertainment from watching an almost three year old do the utterly batshit things that almost three year olds seem to do all day long. She also gets dragged along to a million play dates to entertain said almost three year old.

The plus side with rubbish nappers is that if they stop napping early like mine did (began dropping at 18mo), you get a 6pm bedtime and 13 hour night for AGES 👍🏻

It’s not easy to keep a baby entertained at home. Take my ds somewhere new and he’s perfectly content but at home he whinges as soon as the attention stops. I can reassure you though that it will get slightly easier once she starts crawling.

How do you know she is bored?

2/3 hours is just a guideline and every baby is different. When my ds was 5 months I swear he had a 16 hour maximum awake window. Some days he catnaps, other days he doesn’t nap at all. I actually prefer it when he doesn’t nap because when he does nap his night-time sleep suffers.

When my ds is bored he starts by blowing raspberries and banging his toys, which then progresses to fussing, whining and ear piercing shrieks, and eventually progresses to full-blown crying. Whereas when he is tired he starts by frowning and losing interest in play, which then progresses to yawning and rubbing his eyes and eventually progresses to whimpering.