When will my baby play?

[GoldenCagedBird]

I have a 13 month old who I am finding the days extremely long with at the moment.

She is incredibly high energy, which is fine- but still not able to engage with her toys or activities. Everything goes in the mouth, not interested in hearing me read, things just get thrown.

I have a lovely playroom set up and lots of gorgeous open ended toys, as well as some fantastic musical plastic tat- but I find that we just can’t do anything together right now. Not looking for any reassurance that this is normal, I know it’s developmentally appropriate- but I would be really interested in when I can sit and do a simple activity with her sustaining interest.

Catch, rolling a ball? At the moment we do three throws and then it gets eaten.

Scribbling with crayons on big paper?

Doing 2 piece baby puzzles?

Building a brick tower with an adult?

The only thing she really likes is a bit of baby TV in her other language. We only watch 30 minutes or so a day, sometimes none if we are out doing other things- but it’s the only thing that keeps her attention. I sit with her and sing along to the songs with her (I am learning her other language) but I feel absolutely shitty that it’s the only thing she seems to like doing with me at home. I feel like my days are chasing her around, watching her tear the house up. I try and engage her in the activities daily so it’s at least normalised…

Will I be able to do things with a bit more structure by Christmas?

We do go out 4 days out of 5 btw!

I don't say this to be smug - I hope it will reassure you! - but both of mine were able to do most of the things you list (except drawing) by around this age so I don't think you're far off.

Two suggestions:

Messy play/water play - lots of ideas online but my experience is that loads of toys that my children had no interest in became fascinating in water/dirt

Ordinary objects rather than toys are good for that age group - e.g. old saucepans/tupperware

She is playing, she's just not playing the way you want her too.

In my experience there's a change around 18 months/ 2 years when they do more focused activities (for about 22 seconds).

Their attention span is quite short at that age and they’re still very much in the oral stage of development so roll ball back and forth a couple of times then put it in her mouth is totally normal! Drawing again, couple of scribbles, pencil in mouth. Puzzle, unlikely they’ll manage that much before 2. Building towers at her age you’d expect 2 blocks, maybe 3 at most. They can’t build big ones before about 2 years old. It’s a tough age.

I dont think they have enough attention span to play the same thing for a long time. When i play with my 13 month old we will go between things a lot. I will also play with him a bit then he'll maybe have a little play by himself, then back together and soon.

My 13 month old like shaking things so we have lots of rattly bells and balls, rain sticks and things like that. We'll do a bit of making noise with them and then maybe banging on the xylophone or banging toys together. He also like balls and cars so we do a bit of rolling/throwing to each other, chasing them round the room. We have quite a few montessori type toys that we do together like the box with holes in for putting sticks/wooden coins through, a ball drop. With those i will just do it and help guide him to do it too. We play with blocks and stacking games by me building towers and him knocking them over. I sing songs and use his toys and soft animals as props.... With all of these things sometimes we don't play with them 'properly' but however he wants to e.g. putting all the blocks in a basket and taking them out again, putting the cars on his blocks, everything in his mouth all the time lol. I think you might need to lower your expectations tbh...

Thanks. She has spatulas/measuring cups/jugs mixed in with her toys. I have deep tuff trays that I fill up with water, but everything just gets thrown around the garden. She even managed to lift the tuff tray off the stand yesterday (filled with water). I don’t really care about the mess or the chaos, I would just love her to sit for ten minutes and some glitter pouring with me :(

@Wicksytricksy thank you. Definitely, I know this is fun for her! I’m now drinking coffee watching her empty my bookshelf. I know she’s happy and playing in her own way, but I just have a craving to interact with her.

Thanks for sharing your experiences but I think you misread my post. I realise it’s all normal- no expectations need to be lowered. I wanted to know when we can do more structured activities.

Thank you for sharing. It’s nice to have an idea of what we are working towards. I’m a teacher of older children (taking a few years out!) so I have a craving to play nursery teacher, but this age is all new to me!!

I think what you’re looking for in terms of structured play it’ll be at least 18 months, maybe even closer to 2 years old. I definitely find 12-18 months the hardest age as they want entertaining but there’s still so much they’re learning and nothing occupies them for long.

I agree with this. My eldest at that age liked taking things out of boxes, emptying cupboards, stealing shoes, trying to steal the TV remote and crawling through boxes. I'd work with what she enjoys doing and worry less about the structured activities.

Also, babies and children copy what you do. Do you play with her toys? Have you tried just sitting on the floor, ignoring her and doing a puzzle or sorting shapes by yourself for a bit?

Ime children up to the age of around 10 cannot resist the lure of a large cardboard box in the centre of the living-room. Have you tried putting one there and seeing what she does?

At 14mo I've just noticed my DD starting to concentrate on an activity for short periods of time. She enjoys stacking cups and stacking rings/hoops, and will sit for a few minutes determined to stack them all. This type of intentional play is very new and only emerged in the past couple of weeks.

But she also likes tearing around the house on her walker, banging things together and emptying the kitchen cupboards! Have you tried simple games like building a tower yourself and she knocks it down? Or peekabo? We often play chase where I crawl around after her or hide and then say 'boo'! It's basic but a really fun way to engage with her and get some giggles.

It was only really at around age two that DD1 started really playing with us in the way you seem to wabg. Before that she mostly just did her own thing or played very basic games for a few minutes at a time. Before one year she would play peekaboo (where she was the one hiding, she never really cared when we did it), would pass things back and forth, and would push over towers we stacked for her. Between 12 and 18 months she started fetching things we asked her to get and hiding things for me to look for. This was also the age where she started to like books. At 18-24 months she started trying to rope us in to whatever she was doing. So, for a while she was obsessed with trying to lay blankets out flat on the floor, and she'd ask us to help her get crinkled out. Throughout this time, though, she mainly did her own thing.

Since two, though she's really come on in terms of engaging with activities and her attention span is very good. She'll build Lego houses with us, build a brio train track, play with her tea set, etc., each for half an hour or so at a time. She's not crafty at all though. No interest in glitter.

My second is now nearly 11 months and is still in the basic games for a few seconds phase. She likes peekaboo (again, where she's hiding), passing things back and forth, and putting things into containers that we hold out for her. She also loves being sung to.

No advice but I'm finding it tough with my 13mo as well. He wants to be into everything but is still so small and completely non verbal that everything is either dangerous or frustrating. Toys don't seem to interest him at all. Most interesting things recently have been a pack of tissues and bottle of orange juice. He can stack a few blocks, and put stacking rings on pegs etc, but I'm really looking forward to when we can also do actual activities together. So solidarity OP.

Babies are hard wired to mimic what they see. So get some pots and pans and wooden spoons and give them to her

DS didn’t really start playing with toys until he was 2.5, although I think he was definitely on the late side, even of high energy toddlers. He too just wanted to move and throw and open and close and climb and explore and destroy. I too was out all the time with him! It got a lot better after 2.5 and he’s not too bad at ‘playing’ now at age 3. He still needs exercising daily like a dog though 😂

Could you join in with what she's doing if you want to play with her/interact with her? Help her take the books off the shelf/put them back on so she can take them off/offer a hand and see if she will hand the books to you as she takes them off. Then if you want to play nursery teacher count the books as she hands them to you/make a tower with them/talk about the colours etc.

I'd say structured play took off more for us from about 16 months onwards, noticeably so from 18 months and now at 23 months it's becoming ever more structured and more independent with her starting to play games with her teddies with her own rules etc. Attention span is still short but this is normal - lots of changing tasks/game all the time!

I think language acquisition links with their ability to engage in things, so maybe doing lots of things to support understanding of components of games/play could be something you could do eg repetitively placing things 'on top' of something or playing 'your turn' to hold or pass something, and tons of reading together for language development generally. At 13 months I still went for the angle of just involving her in things I was doing rather than playing, as I found it less boring!