Things she loved at this age (went back through photos): cheap small Mylar mirror.
Pump bottles filled with rice, coffee beans, and sand as little shakers she could play with.
This is when we got her pikler triangle and we would hang stuff from the top and she loved pulling to stand on it and playing with stuff.
Still got a lot of use from her playmat and the stuff hanging from it.
ETA omg how could I forget. This is when we introduced the sacrificial kitchen drawer. Lower drawer with all sorts of Tupperware, wooden spoons, lids, popsicle molds, whatever we wanted to throw in there for her to discover. Kitchen crap was her faaaaavorite. Ripping it out of the drawer and launching it was the highlight of her life.
Yeah, I was going to say that 6-9 months was an age that my nalgene bottle was way more prizes than anything I could purchase. We did like the skip hop activity table for a ‘container’ that kept her happy for 5 minutes when we needed to stir something on the stove or use the bathroom.
This was also the age that having a nice soft mat or rug is good because babies topple over even after they’ve been sitting for a while. Pipsqueak fell backwards and hit her head on concrete in the garage when I had too small of a mat under her (she was fine).
Also, music makers!! Egg shakers, things to bang on like drums or xylophones. I have a full sized piano keyboard that I put on the floor and Pipsqueak loved banging on the keys.
Question for 2-kid households: how did you do the logistics of a toddler & newborn, especially around meal/bath/bedtime? I was peacefully reading on the couch last night as spouse put Spore to bed, and realized that those days are short-lived. Is it possible for 1 adult to wrangle both sometimes so the other person can take a break/take care of stuff? Or is more divide-and-conquer for the early months and everyone goes to bed exhausted with a messy house?
At 2 and 3 years old we are still in the divide and conquer phase, but it is usually one parent is dealing with the children while the other does the cleaning/cooking/etc. We are also stuck with both children only wanting me for certain things, like bedtime. If Ry tries to help them they get very upset and cry for mama. So he tends to clean up from dinner while I put them to bed.
When L was a newborn one of us would hold her while the other did bedtime with B. For meals we always all sit at the table and that didn’t change when L was born, but one of us would hold her or manager her in a bouncy seat next to the table while we were eating. It is damn hard to eat with two children though and I usually eat 1/2 of my meal at the table with everyone and then I finish it after we put them to bed.
We for sure did a lot of divide and conquer. Especially for bedtime. It keeps changing though. Right now I put oldest to bed and husband puts youngest to bed. There have been different iterations of this though with different bedtimes for a while. Now at almost 5 and 21 months they both go to bed at the same time. They have separate bedrooms so it’s hard to put both to bed by one person.
I can do bed for both at once, but usually we divide and conquer. It is often the only one on one time the kids get. There are also times if I’m trying to do bed that they will just keep hyping each other up.
I highly recommend not always doing divide and conquer so that you have a strategy for of the other person works late etc.
This is what we do when Ry is at judo and I do full bedtime alone. I put them in L’s room and shut her door and sit in front of it so they can’t escape, then we get on nighttime diapers and pajamas and do stories, songs, etc. They both sit on my lap to rock and sing in the glider, and then B helps put L into bed and give her hugs and kisses, and then I put B in bed. It was actually easier when L was an infant and not going to bed at the same time as B because I could just strap her to my chest while I did bedtime with B.
It was definitely divide and conquer (or not conquer depending on the day) but mine were far enough apart that I could tuck the big sister into bed and promise that I would be back soon and then put the littler sister down. Dh did bath time while I cleaned up dinner and picked up the living room.
Sorry to say that there was not much downtime to be had for a number of years. By the time we had dinner, it was time to start baths and bed and then we were pretty much ready for bed, too. We are early risers and dh left for work by 7 or so.
Our kids started sharing a room at 18 mos & four years. They are good sleepers and never got out of their beds, obviously YMMV there.
Bedtime in one room was way easier than two rooms at that stage. I think they shared for three years, then went to separate rooms when they were slightly more independent.
I’d get out jammies, the older would dress himself/i’d dress the younger. Older would go pee and we’d brush teeth. Into beds for Storytime.
I can’t remember what our routine was when we had a baby and toddler. I know husband was working late a lot and I often flew solo, but I can’t remember the routine. At that age the kids each had their own half of the room with a double pocket door between, so it could be two rooms or it could be one big room.
