Wow - I'm smiling reading through all this, remembering. But at the time there was nothing to smile about! DS (now 5) spent much of his first year in the Baby Bjorn. He would not happily sit anywhere for any length of time. I remember the changing table traumas too - i had to strap him in tight to get changes in! Interesting "toys" to examine while the changing goes on helped, but we had to change these every time to keep the interest.
I wrote out a 2-page instruction sheet for my mom when she was babysitting (i think DS was around 4 months before I went out). It listed all the things to try if DS got fussy, which was often. The best thing at the time was to lie down on your back with him with a pile of books and just read. He would happily listen to books for hours. We had lots of dr. seuss at that time.
I think we waited a little later with the TV (maybe around 9 months?), but his first favorite videos were blue's clues with steve. Until about 18 months, he loved loved loved blue's clues (he didn't care for the new guy though, so we got all the old steve episodes on ebay.)
I'm trying to think of favorite toys... it's hard to remember! These were a big hit for a long time. They have little fun shaker things you can put in the slots, and later on DS wore the blocks on his wrists like bracelets.
Parents soft blocks And keep up with the tummy time - that helped my DS become mobile. He didn't care for it much either, so he would roll over. Then he discovered he could keep on rolling and got around very quickly that way for quite a while.
good luck!
