Toys/activities for rolling, sitting, crazily wiggly 18 week old

[RubyrooUK]

My DS2 is 18 weeks old. Until now, he has been a very content, relaxed, still baby (unlike his older brother who was very, very high maintenance and almost killed me).

In the last couple of weeks, DS2 has suddenly become much, much more active. He can sit up unsupported for a couple of minutes, he can roll easily both ways and has started a sort of commando crawling (although NOT proper crawling obviously). I left him in his baby gym this morning and put DS1 on the potty and when I looked again, he had wriggle-crawled all the way out and onto the changing mat!

This is lovely but he is immensely frustrated now when lying down. He rolls, pulls himself around and then gets bored and cries until you sit him up. He isn't yet able to pull himself up and he gets overbalanced when aggressively grabbing stuff while sitting so you can't leave him sitting up and move away as he isn't that competent. He wants to grab absolutely everything. His motor skills are pretty good.

What toys are good for this stage? He has a sort of activity centre with a keyboard which he uses pretty competently. He has a baby gym with dangly toys. He has a bouncy chair. He has lots of soft, crinkly books that make noises. Anything else that seems a big hit with babies at this point? I can't remember anything from first time round.....any ideas? He seems so frustrated and I am not sure how to entertain him best since up till now, he hasn't needed any entertainment!!!!

[AmandaCooper]

Have you got one of those doorway bouncers? DS does 3pm mins a day in his - I set a timer!

[AmandaCooper]

*30 mins

[JollyHolidayGiant]

www.google.co.uk/search?redir_esc=&redir_esc=&hl=en-GB&client=ms-android-hms-vf-gb&source=android-browser-type&v=200400000&qsubts=1374266540148&q=vtech%20caterpillar#biv=i%7C0%3Bd%7Ce9PFqUHFJUXb-M%3A

We had one of those - a vtech roll and wiggle caterpillar which DS loved for ages. There were other plastic noisy shite toys too but that's the one he liked best. Don't buy the vtech cow. It was rubbish.

[RubyrooUK]

Thanks - will investigate the caterpillar. I've got a door bouncer too which DS1 loved but DS1 "helps" his younger brother bounce, which doesn't work well for DS2's continued existence....or my stress levels.

[JollyHolidayGiant]

Oh, and a treasure box! I had forgotten about that.

[tomatoplantproject]

I second a treasure box which kept dd amused for ages at that age (and she was a wriggly, bouncy, sitting up soul

[RubyrooUK]

I may be dumb here but what is a treasure box?

[JollyHolidayGiant]

It's a box filled with things that are not plastic. The idea is you take it out for 20 minutes or so every day and baby gets a chance to explore unusual textures. So we had things like:
A wooden spoon
A pastry brush
A bobbin
A spanner
Some ribbon
A lacy, light scarf
A pine cone
A very small glass jar with a marble in it (glued shut)
Another glass jar with glitter in it.

[sanam2010]

Get a yoga mat from amazon and let him do lots of tummy time with interesting objects in front of him. I highly recommend the book "fit baby, smart baby" by Glenn Doman, it has lots of physical activities for babies

[RubyrooUK]

Ah thank you. Will check out that book and make a treasure box too. In my house, that was called DS1's "favourite old rubbish", so
I never knew it had a name. Great idea, thanks.

[AmandaCooper]

Come to think of it, I used to help my dsis bounce. Bad idea!