Bored 9 mo - to rescue or not?

[IrinaSh]

I'm trying to figure out what to do when DD (9 mo) is playing with her toys by herself, then gets bored and starts whining: do you go to her rescue and offer a different activity or just let her cry and come up with something on her own? She doesn't crawl yet, but she can pull herself to sitting position. I would like to encourage her to explore on her own and come up with some independent game ideas, but she doesn't seem to be creative enough about it (or am I hindering her by helping her out?). What do others do?

Oh, and on top of everything, we are running out of play ideas: toy box is not as appealing anymore, she likes walking around holding my hands, but I can't do it forever (6 month pregnant and my back starts hurting)... reading is hit or miss,  we try to go outside at least daily, but other then that - I'm blanking. In the "Activity ideas for 9-12 mo" thread most of the activities are good for kids that can crawl/walk/stack things. We are not quite there yet.
I would appreciate any input!
Irina

[Shiv52]

My LO is 9 1/2 months.  She has just started to move about in the last few weeks but before she was only able to sit up.

Before she was restricted because she was stuck in one spot.  I tended to leave a few toys sitting about that she could reach  and I would intervene once I saw she was starting to get a bit fed up and either change the toys or play a game with her or move to another part of the room.  I think had I just left her she would have become frustrated and wouldn't have been able to find something else to do so probably best to intervene once you seen you LO getting fed up before she's whining if possible and say 'oh you're bored' and swap toys or move her to somewhere else in the room. 

I also rotate toys every couple of days and that helps with her interest in them!  The other thing she loves is sitting in the kitchen with me with some tupperware boxes and spoons etc.  Better than any toy we have.  I tend to rotate her doing things by herself and doing something with her every so often so she doesn't get bored. 

We have lots of musical toys which she loves.  Other things she loves doing are her door swing or water play (I sit some water in a wee tray and strip her down to her vest and nappy and stick some bubbles in it and a few toys) and that buys me 5/10 minutes (obviously I wouldn't leave her alone with water).  She also likes scrunching newspaper.  She loves looking through books-we made some albums with family photos in them.  She also loves stacking cups-can't stack them but likes to bang them together. 

I'm not sure how long babies at 9 months should beable to occupy themselves for.  How long does you DD play for on her own at the minute.

Enjoy the sitting stage by the way...I didn't appreciate it nearly enough.  My DD has only been moving for three weeks and i've forgotten what that stage was like already!  Am about to pick up all my DVDs for the tenth time today which DD just bypassed about 10 toys to reach!