Distractibility is normal in your baby, toddler, and throughout childhood in general. Concentration improves with maturity, but it is a skill that can also be practiced and built upon from the start.

Remember how entranced your newborn was with that ceiling fan in those early months and how intently they began to stare at your face with those first adorable coos? Your baby has already been practicing focus, and they continue to do so through play!

Experts generally agree that a typical attention span, or the ability to focus on something before getting distracted by something else, is a couple of minutes per year of age. So, it’s reasonable to notice that a two-year-old seems to engage with one activity for five minutes, maybe up to ten!

This doesn’t mean that play time lasts five to ten minutes. It just means that interacting with one activity may be short-lived before they decide to explore something else that has caught their interest. It’s also possible that your baby or toddler stays on one activity longer, and this is most likely if it’s something that beautifully matches their interest. As humans, we focus better on stuff that we’re really into!