11MO Independence

Question

My 11 month old son can be rather independent and want "alone time" quite frequently. I am all for this as he happily plays in the room whilst I do my work or whatever task I am doing. My concern is that when I do engage with him, he isn't interested in me as such.

I do not read books to him for example, he much prefers to eat or smack the book. I also do not play games with him per se; he much prefers to use me as a stand to walk to or to talk to (which is great).

I am concerned at his age I should be far more engaged and doing things with him (such as reading), but he prefers to do what he wishes and just know I am in the room.

On a side note, he loves musical kids videos on YouTube and fear he may get far too attached to this - should I stop him from this?

Answer 1

What you're describing sounds very much to me like an eleven month old child. They don't have very long (really, any) attention spans; so they don't pay attention to your reading. They want to stimulate all of their senses - so they chew on the books, want to hold them, want to turn the pages, etc.

He appreciates your attention, though. Don't assume that the fact that he's not returning your attention means he doesn't like it. He's just multi-tasking: he's got a lot to take in right now, a lot of new experiences for him every minute of every day. So he keeps on doing what he's doing, learning how to move around and talk and everything else. But he's paying attention to you, too, and listening to you talk and learning words just from you talking near him.

If you're at all concerned about his development of language or similar, definitely talk to your pediatrician - that's a big part of their role right now, checking for developmental delays. Feel free to ask at your next visit. But nothing you say is particularly abnormal from my experience (with two kids and their friends).

As for the youtube videos; the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time before 18 months. That said, a few minutes here and there isn't going to do any significant harm; just keep it brief and infrequent. The fact that he loves the videos isn't a surprise, it's a ton of visual and audio stimulation all at once!