Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school help please - out of ideas/resources for my baby

It certainly is challenging, I'm not trying to minimize that. A very alert/smart baby can be exhausting!

I think Grinity is right concerning the Leapfrog toys. My kids loved them and as soon as they can sit independently there are some great toys they can *work* on, hopefully to their little hearts content.

In the meantime, you can always find kindness and support here!

I'd never thought of it that way but that's what I saw when DDs were babies. Even the Baby Einstein videos made them angry, so they spent much of their early years in the sling. When my back was sore, I'd get some relief with the johnny jump up.
I still marvel today when I see babies content to sit in their car seats playing with a toy. Hang in there, it does get better!

P.S. Here's an old thread you may find helpful
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/35474/1.html

Ah the good old days. My DS didn't refuse until he could stand independently. But from that moment on, he would never, ever lay down to get his diaper changed, even the really gross Poos. So I would get him into the smallest bathroom, and change him standing up, chasing him if I had to, until I felt that I had wiped properly. The other mom's thought that I was c.r.a.z.y.

So someday she will be able to stand, or maybe even hold herself up, and she'll let you do it that way. We gotta be creative with these 'un-little' little ones.

Same with the carseat - he would tense his body so I had to push with all my might to get the car seat straps on. In a few months she'll realize that to get to the library requires a car and car seat. Then she'll be more reasonable.

It really is ok to let her watch some TV. Hireing homeschooled kids to come over and relieve you might be good to, or find that special 'fake-grandma' who lives nearby. Or a teen from the highschool who needs to put in some community service hours. You have to put on your life preserving equipment first. Really.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Heh.

Oh, what fun lies ahead!!

I have a series of pictures of Mr W (15 mos now ) at 4.5 months, sitting up, propped on his arms, cackling at TV, alternating through the various emotions, with the last picture of him looking at DW with a very serious expression. In one picture, you can see DW's shoes and you realize unly then that he is a SMALL baby. At 8 mos he watched the entired Wizard of Oz. He love to dance when DWTS is on.

Its a very hard thing to keep him occupied. He only started sleeping through the night at 12 mos, but still, on occasion, will stay up until 10 and then awake at 5. We had to work very hard to let him cry it out. DW and I made it by alternating nights with him.

At 3 mos we got him a "command center" that he could sit in, move back and forth in, and do stuff with. It has about 10 gizmos. At 5 mos he got a kiddie piano. At 4 mos he had shape sorters and the peg puzzles and the Dr Suess board books. We also got him some stuff that had arms and he could spin the wheels on. We took him for walks every morning and evening ( still do the evening ones ) in a baby bjorn. The sitter took him to the mall and on walks. I would also put him in a boppy seat on the counter while I cooked.

He loves music and could recognize artists and works from as early as we can recall. When he was 3 mos old he sang to the pianist in Nordstrom's one day for 30 minutes. At 6 mos he was enraptured by a player piano. Nowadays in the car he is in control of the radio and demands we change channels or que up his songs on the ipod.

We could never leave him alone for a second if he was not in his command center or watching tv. The level of interaction he requires to this day is simply draining for everyone. You just don't get used to it - you just rise to the occasion!!!

Things are easier now - he will unload the dishwasher, take out the trash, throw his diapers away, and follow instructions or get stuff when we are at the store or at the drs office - but also harder as he opens doors, can use the phone, the channel changer, and not always correctly. He knows how to turn things on and off!! ( He will turn off my laptop if he wants my attention and I am working and he evades DW!!)

Mr W prefers to play with 3 year olds or older and their toys and with adults. He does some astonishing things sometimes. He also understands far more than he lets on.

So, yes, its going to be very, very hard sometimes.

Oh I had to laugh at your post, onewinterbaby!

I didn't know what hit me when DD appeared on the scene. We played a Baby Einstein DVD for her at 3 months old (for the same reasons you said) and she actually liked it - until the credits rolled, that is, and she started screaming. It took a few times, but we finally figured out that she did not care for the credits.

My advice? Get a Moby Wrap, strap your baby on your chest *face out* and get out there and do whatever you can, talking all the time. Our DD would not tolerate facing our chests or riding on our backs.

Until she crawls, she's going to be mad as a hornet, if she's like my DD. I swear I was the only mom celebrating when my baby began to crawl! She could then spend hours examining the perimeter of the room on her own, although of course I had to make sure she didn't eat anything or bonk her head.

For us, the first months until DD could crawl was hands down the hardest. No one told us our baby was bored.

Welcome!

Yikes! Looks like I'm in for quite a ride! Geez...haha, well, I'll buckle up and get ready. I hope it does get better when she starts crawl!

Yes, she does seem bored to tears! Haha...she doesn't cry about it though, she just get's very demanding or mad.

What concerns me is that she wants to drink out of an adult cup herself, get toys herself. She knows exactly what she wants to do herself. She has own learning agenda in mind. I feel like I'm the one expected to keep up...haha...

thanks for all the advice on how to keep her busy! Guess I'll have two shadows permanently! The piano may be a good idea for her. She loves music! Hopefully I can make it the next few months!

This phase and the many that follow it will pass before you know it and that is both a beautiful and a sorrowful thing.
Enjoy this time while you have it, you'll have a whole new world to worry about once she starts crawling around.

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!

We didn't allow our babies to watch tv until at least a year old, and then they had only very limited exposure. My kids were absolutely exhausting as infants. We wore them as much as possible (front carrier, sling, or backpack) talked to them constantly, and read lots of books together. My babies were walking independently at between seven and ten months, talking up a storm, and needing to be watched every moment. When all the other moms were sitting around talking, my kids were walking around, asking questions, and getting into things. It was a tough stage, but it didn't last forever! Enjoy your baby, and take comfort in the thought that six months or a year from now, it will be a whole different story.

I haven't read all the posts, but have you started teaching your baby to sign? My dds learned quickly and it saved on the "guess work" before they were verbal enough to make needs known. www.signingtime.com has great DVDs that my kids loved!