My baby is delayed

amother

Aubergine

Tue, Jan 24 2023, 5:41 am

My dd was delayed too in motor skills, but cognitively and speech-wise was fine. We just practiced and practiced a practiced the exercises the PT showed us. Several time a day. Sometimes, we just weren't doing it enough and didn't realize just how much work we needed to put and doing it more made a difference.

Also, the PT told us not t0 be afraid to let your baby get frustrated- it is ok if you put him on his tummy and he cries, ok if you do the exercises and he cries. Not because it is good for them to cry, and it should be minimized (not more than a few minutes max), but because it is effort and sometimes feels hard for them, but there isn't progress without effort. If we rescue them every time they need to try or get frustrated, they won't put in the effort/practice to build muscle and muscle memory, and they won't always have motivation to do things themselves if an adult does it for them every time they have to put in some effort.

Sometimes, the issue isn't muscle tone, but coordination. Dyspraxia (also called developmental coordination disorder - DCD) was a suspicion in our case, which means that it just takes the child much more time and practice to integrate new motor skills (like if an average kid needs 10 tries to learn to catch a ball, a kid with DCD will need 25 or 50 or 100 tries). That may not be the issue in your case and may not be clear until the child is older. It isn't something serious, but does require work throughout life, but doesn't have to impair (I have it and I'm fine, just took me longer to learn skills like swimming and bike riding, and I have bad handwriting. I am otherwise a very capable adult).

Also, they had us take DD for an eye exam as a baby, in case her lack of movement was vision related. Turned out she was already slightly nearsighted, which was surprising, but didn't fully explain everything. At any rate, I highly recommend ruling out a vision issue. Sometimes the baby can see but there are issues with coordinating the use of both eyes together or a baby is more significantly near sighted or far sighted and this impacts their ability and/or desire to move around.

Also, sometimes babies make progress in giant leaps instead of tiny steps. Like DD didn't take any steps until 1 year 9 months, but just a step here or there and stayed that way for 3 months. I expected the amount of steps or walking she did to increase gradually, but it just stalled for months. Then the day before she turned 2 she just got up and walked like it was no problem and never went back to crawling.

Anyway, it was very slow going with dd, now she is nearly 10 and you'd never know she had a delay. So just keep working hard. And ask the PT if the lack of progress seems normal or if it seems concerning, they may have an idea because they see these things regularly.

amother

Moonstone

Tue, Jan 24 2023, 6:01 am

amother Lily wrote:

Consider getting a different PT.
I once had a PT for my daughter for a few months and she didnt make much progress. I finally switched to another one, and she improved tremendously in a short amount of time. The second PT was gentle but firm and really knew what to do to get my daughter moving.

This!
I have an amazing PT through EI that gets my child moving and happily too!
At 12 months was behind on all milestones you mentioned and some more.
My child made steady progress since BH, although still quite delayed.

The right PT can really make a difference