6 year old wanting constant attention

[stevie123]

Hi all.
My 6,nearly 7 year old is driving me round the bend. He wants constant entertaining and can't do anything on his own. He follows you round the house!
I have an 8 month old baby and just feel totally wiped out with the constant pestering from 6 year old on top of looking after the baby.
The 6 year old cannot sit still, even at the dinner table, or in the car. As soon as dad walks in from work he's pestering him for attention before he's even got his shoes off or got changed out of his dirty work clothes.
Is anybody else's similar aged child like this?
I find the evenings quite tiring now. The baby goes to bed at 7pm,and the 6 year old obviously stays up later, but he wants us to entertain/play with him till he goes to bed at like 8/9pm! What do your similar aged children do of an evening after dinner? There's only so many times we can play monopoly with him or play the wii with him. I kind of feel that after 7pm we should be able to relax a bit and not have to entertain him. I do t mind him staying up but why can't he read a book or play with his toys for a bit etc.
I feel bad as I'm constantly moaning at him to give it a rest for a while, and so is Oh.
Am I being unreasonable in thinking that he should entertain himself now sometimes?
It's not a new thing so it's not since the baby has arrived, he was like it before the baby. He's not jealous of his brother at all or anything like that. Currently it's 8pm and me and oh have put the TV on in the living room to watch a programme and the 6 year old is literally sat on top of Oh on the sofa constantly asking questions and talking to him and trying to get him to play with him with his new fidget spinner toy.
So what do your kids do in the evening before bed? Please tell me I'm not being unreasonable to expect some peace every now and then? I feel mean even writing this!

 

[pillarbox_red]

My son is exactly like this, you can play with him for an hour or two straight, or take him out somewhere fun for the day but the second you go to do something for yourself he's pestering to play.
If you try and have a conversation with someone else he's up in your face interrupting and trying to think of just anything to say to get the attention back to him. It is hard work!
On the odd occasions he plays himself he is fine.
I don't know what the answer is, I've seen some people suggesting using a timer and telling them they must play by themselves until it goes off, starting with 10/15 mins to begin with.
Might be worth a try?
It won't last forever I hope!

 

[happynewmom1]

It might sound mean but I would tell our 6.5 year old if he can't play by himself for a bit then he can go to bed too because evenings are for quiet and relaxing. I also encourage him to get books out to read. Our son is quite active and wants me to play with him a lot too...we have 3 kids though so our attention has to be split. If we are really desperate for some quiet, he will get a little iPad time which we time. The timer idea is really good though and would be worth a shot!

 

[jd83]

I think it's pretty normal, honestly. Especially if there isn't a sibling close in age for them to play with. Mine are 6 and 4, and they play pretty well together most of the time. Dh and I try to do one on one time with them on weekends, where he'll take one of them with him to work at the farm, and I'll keep the other (and then we rotate which kid goes to the farm for the day the next weekend). When they are by themselves, they are MUCH more needy for attention, like they don't know what to do with themselves for entertainment lol. My kids like to be involved in whatever I'm doing. Have you had your son help you with cooking, cleaning, etc?

Things my kids do in the evenings to entertain themselves for a bit:
Play on the iPad or DS for a limited amount of time
Build things with Legos. This is a good one for killing some time. I bought Jaxon a Lego creations book, and he likes to look up cool things he can build and then he brings them to show us when he's finished. We ooh and awe over whatever he builds, and then send him back to build something else really cool.
Tinker toys, same thing with building different things
Play doh
Dominoes. Both boys watch tons of dominos videos on Kids Youtube, and love to build dominos mazes. I bought a huge set of them on Amazon for like $20-30, totally worth it. They can easily spend an hour building with those.
Marble run. Same thing. They watch tons of videos of marble runs on kids Youtube, and then like to set up their own runs.

ETA: Also, a fixed bedtime helps to give you some evening time to yourselves. Our kids go to bed at 8pm, only exception being if we not at home at 8pm. I would make it a set bedtime, not a range anywhere from 8-9pm.