I'm walking too far ahead

I've been meaning to write about our experience with BabyT's gross motor delays. Even writing that sentence gave me pause, because the word "delays" imply to me that there's something wrong. I'm still not convinced that's true, but when you compare her to the average she has definitely picked up some skills much slower than her peers. And of course, everyone thinks their child is a genius and above average, right? We're no exception.

She was a super huge, healthy baby who LOVED her milk. So much that she was nearly always off the charts for weight. She got head control and reached for things right on schedule. She rolled over once "on schedule" but we didn't really see her do it again. She definitely was not interested in rolling to get anywhere.

She sat with assistance from a Boppy around 6-7 months, and got better and more stable at it over the next couple of months. Maybe a tiny bit later than her baby friends, but not much.

In general she was just not that interested to go after things out of her reach. We actually thought that was a feature, not a bug, since it was easier on us and she was content and happy to hang out with books and toys for LONG periods of time. I could even take a shower!

But at her 9 month checkup, her doctor expressed some concern that she was not even attempting to crawl. She recommended we get her an evaluation for all skills (language, small motor, and gross motor) with a local early childhood center if she wasn't crawling by 10 months or so.

I hated hearing this. I didn't want anything to be "wrong with" my perfect baby girl. But I made the appointment for the eval a few months out since they're hard to come by, and figured she'd work out the crawling thing, and we could cancel the appointment.

But she didn't and summer break for the center was coming up, so we went in for the eval around 10 months. T thought it was great - 3 people to play with her *and* new toys. She dutifully stacked cups, answered to her name and looked at things they pointed to, while we answered a battery of questions about what skills she had (did she "help" by putting her arms in sleeves when we dressed her, was she trying to pull up, would she "walk" if we supported her upper body, etc.).

They told us that she was doing well on language and small motor skills, but was 2 standard deviations behind the average in gross motor skills, which meant she qualified for Early Intervention physical therapy through our state's program.   They thought she would just need sessions twice a month, and we agreed to set those up.

I was disappointed about the results, and all of the official paperwork that showed up referencing developmental disabilities.  Granted, it's all boilerplate government documentation but still hard to read when it's MY kid they're talking about.

T started physical therapy in September 2010 when she was about a year old, and a few months later, at 15 months, started crawling.  She got really good at it.  We're not sure if it was the physical therapy or the fact that she started daycare in the toddler room at the same time, and wanted to keep up with the other kids.

We worked on building her strength and getting her to be more active at the park and playground. 

At 18 months with no sign of walking, I was officially freaking out so we increased her physical therapy sessions to once a week.  She was the only kid in our toddler group who was not walking.

She finally took her first steps when she was 19.5 months old and since she's super cautious, she apparently waited until *she* was good and ready, skipped the wobbly-falling down stage, and got good at it in just a few weeks.   We stopped using the stroller almost immediately and had her walk everywhere we went, to get her more practice.  Our toddler group friends cheered for her when she walked by herself to the park at our first summer playdate - she was so proud of herself!

But here's the thing - she was acquiring all those skills in the expected order, just about 6 months behind most of her peers.  And by the time she walked, she was already speaking in complete, clear sentences so I wonder if her brain was just working on other things.

It's hard to know if the PT actually helped but I know it didn't hurt.  She loved visits from "Miss Carrie" and I didn't want to take the chance that her skills would be even more delayed without it.  Upon recommendation from other folks at work with kids in the same situation, we signed her up for Little Gym around 16 months, to give her some more structured active play time and continued that through this summer.  She just started taking a combo dance and gym class there this week as per her special request to learn to "do ballet".

In March 2012 we decided to discontinue PT even though she was eligible for it through her 3rd birthday.  She was still a little behind her peers (still super cautious, not jumping yet) but I felt confident that she'd catch up over time.  She's become a lot more active in the past few months, though I think she's always going to be cautious - it's just part of her personality.  (I can relate!)


I wanted to write about this because Dr. Google alarmed me with a lot of worst-case scenarios around motor development. I couldn't find any info on kids who just happened to walk late for no discernible medical reason, but were on track (or ahead!) on development in other areas.

We did all the "right" things when she was tiny - tummy time, limited time in the Exersaucer, used an Ergo carrier instead of the infant carseat all the time, etc. But she developed her skills at her own pace and continues to do that.  Frustrating when you compare it to the standard timelines, but humans are all different, right?

So for anyone doing late night Googling about "why my baby isn't walking yet" or "not walking at 18 months", hopefully this is somewhat comforting.   It is worth getting the evaluation and the PT helped us feel as if we were taking action and doing what we could to help her without stressing out or trying to force her to acquire skills before she was ready.

It was also a good exercise in patience for me - just because we *wanted* her to learn how to walk, and practiced with her, didn't mean she was going to do it.  This is a familiar refrain around here (see also: Potty training)  Sometimes, you just gotta wait it out.