Fun activities for 8 month old

[Anonymous]

Hello - I work full time so only have a few hours a day to spend with my 8 month old son. Any ideas on fun activities to do with him after work in this heat? I struggle with the guilt of not being with him all day long so really want to make the most out of my time at the end of the day. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Go for walks, swim, lay on the floor and play. Dont answer your phone, dont do errands--just make himthe focus.

[Anonymous]

Swimming. My almost 7.5 yo loves getting in the pool with her baby float. We take her to an indoor pool, because we're still on a waiting list for a summer pool, which actually is pretty nice because no worry about sunblock and it's not as crowded. Baby swings at the park. Just plain old playtime with her favorite toys, helping her practice her skills like standing with support, crawling, rolling, etc. if she is into it. Playing a CD and singing. Reading a book -- my baby didn't seem to be into books too much until we figured out that she has this one favorite book about baby animals that she just loves us reading to her. I personally stopped doing long walks after work because I felt like it's not quality time together with her facing front where we can't even see each other. Get in the bath together with a bunch of bath toys and play together.

[Anonymous]

We definitely take 8mo DS to the kiddie pool on weekends. During the weekdays, we have a playroom for him. We bring out toys, blocks, musical things, things he can stand on (when propped like a piano), and I play with him with whatever he finds interesting at the moment. We might try a new food, and if I must start dinner, I bring him into the kitchen and sit him on the floor where he can watch what I'm doing. He loves it when we read to him, but its more of an activity for when he's a little "calmer" (he's not exactly hyper, but he's more into active play in the early evening).

[Anonymous]

I'm like you, at work during the day. I come home in the evening and I crawl around the floor in the air conditioning with my baby. We listen to music, and I have silly mimes I do during the songs. Recently he's become more active: I stack up his foam blocks and he crawls over and knocks them down. He likes peekaboo, behind a cloth diaper and behind a cardboard box and even behind the bedroom door. I found the book BABY PLAY by Gymboree filled with good ideas that he liked, chasing around the light from a flashlight, pillow obstacle courses, pulling scarves out of cardboard tubes... I cuddle him a lot, like playing a game where I am inching towards him on my hands and knees... and as I get nearer to him he begins to giggle... because he knows that I'm going to pick him up and chew on his feet, ribs!

On cooler days, he and I play with water and ice cubes (I make large icecubes with tupperware) on the deck. It's been too hot for that recently.

After we crawl around a little bit, I give him dinner (whatever solid food I'm pushing on him) and then I give him a bath. He loves bathtime. A tepid bath in this heat is so much fun for him! I then dry him off and do his bedtime routine with him (books, bottle, bed).

He's usually asleep by 8:00 pm, so then I do all the household stuff that I didn't do when I first come home: load the dishwasher, run a load of laundry. My deal with my DH is that he's in charge of dinner while I do the house stuff, because I wasn't very happy with his ideas about picking up/cleaning. ; )

It's hard to be away from a baby and it's hard to make the transition to being playful, silly, goofy. If you think of it like "I'm entering my home and this is a light silly delightful place for my baby" you may be able to create a zone in which you leave work trouble, management pressures outside of the home. I don't talk about work anymore at dinner (it makes me too wound up). I talk to my DH about house stuff, articles, current events and our son over dinner. I try to find games that I enjoy (like the music and the mimes, and a variety, that are genuinely fun, because I love watching DS's face as he makes discoveries. I encourage you to enjoy him. This is such a wonderful age. If you need encouragement, just read the posts about 2 year olds, 3 year olds and tantrums. GL and enjoy.

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Your post isn't clear if you're looking for activities in the home or out of the home...

At any rate, I'm sympathetic. I'm away from my DS during the day and love to come home to him. Generally I get to him about 5:15-5:30 and (he's 9 months) he doesn't stay up long enough for me to do many activities out of the home. He loves looking a people, so in the spring, when the weather was nicer, he and I would go for walks and I'd talk to him about what we were looking at. Now he and I stay inside, because of heat. While inside, we do all the fun things he likes to do:
* touch and feel books
* peekaboo games with me and his stuffed animals
* banging on pots and pans
* pulling himself to standing position on sofa, chair, me, window sill, anything around him

He gets a bath. Big fun for him: he likes the bubbles, he likes his YouKidoo toys, he likes splashing the water around and pouring it into different containers. I then change him into jammies, read 3-4 books, and he has a bottle before going to bed.

But here's the bottom line: Your baby is going to enjoy anything with you. He's going to like seeing you, hearing your voice, smelling you, and being cuddled by you. I'd just focus on spending the time with him and not worry too much about what you are "doing."