I am starting to have some concerns about my 15-month-old-son's gross motor skills. He is not yet walking independently--he walks around the room while holding onto furniture. He will also walk holding on to both of my hands, but if I let go he stops dead in his tracks, starts to wobble, and then drops to his knees and starts crawling.
We started going to a playgroup where there are other toddlers. I am not big on comparing kids to each other, but my son is very clumsy compared to the other kids near his own age. Two separate times he has been sitting on a toddler-size chair (very low to the ground) and he will go to stand up and just falls flat on his face. He has poor balance--he went to push a play stroller and it went flying out from under him. (Ok, that last paragraph makes it sound like I don't keep an eye on him or that playgroup is traumatic!!).
His health history in a nutshell.... His head circumference has always been off the charts. At 6 months, he had a CT scan to rule out anything medical. It came back normal and they measured my husband's and my heads. We both have large heads, too, so they were not worried. He was late to sit up (9 months) due to his hips being out of whack. He responded great to chiropractic care, which he still receives, and which our Nurse Practitioner has given her blessing to. He has always been very large for his age. He is 30 lbs and I don't know his height, but most 2 year olds come up to his shoulders!
Our Nurse Practitioner said not to worry about his not walking until 15 months; his chiropractor said 18 months. He has appointments w/both providers later this month.
Ironically, his fine motor skills are good. He can pick up and eat raisins and peanuts. He can hold a pen and hand it to another person, and stack blocks. He can turn pages in a book.
Other areas of development seem right on to me. He signs "toilet", "food", and "milk", and he is using the potty chair part-time. Lots of babbling, but can say "All done".
He has a push wagon that we take outside and have him walk around and push for 15-20 minutes, twice a day. We encourage him to walk as much as possible, holding on to our hands.
Is there anything else we can be doing to help his gross motor skills? Has anyone had experience with this? Should I be concerned?
I spend 45 minutes on the phone with Early Intervention, doing an initial interview. I'm getting ready to fill out the stack of paperwork they send me, only to have my son run down the sidewalk--ON HIS OWN. He just started walking unaided and did it for the better part of today. Go figure. I will see how things go over the next couple days, and then call my contact at Early Intervention to see how to proceed. Thanks!
Call Early Intervention for an evaluation. It's free and they come to your home. http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/fh/mcshn/directory/ind... Calling them for my son's speech concerns was the best thing I could have done for him.
My daughter was the EXACT same way even after she learned to walk she appeared clumbsy and everyone thought I was nuts. Well I listened to my motherly instinct kept fighting that something was wrong with my daughter.
She went to kindergarten roundup at age3 where the school district runs your child through multiple tests to catch anything that may need working on before kindergarten. Well they caught her gross motor skills were off too.
So then I took her to the pediatrician who was iffy on my theory but referred us for a gross motor skill assessment by a physical therapist. Well my daughter failed that assessment then finally by age 4 we got her into physical therapy. I should have gotten her in sooner but I kept thinking she would outgrow her clumbsyiness etc. She didn't. She had alot of problems at daycare she couldn't physically keep up with the other kids etc. She had 6mos. of physicaly theraphy along with me throwing her in every extra curricular out there at age4 to buildup her muscles, swimming, teeball, tumbling you name it. Her ankles and trunk(tummy) muscles were weak.
My daughter is now 7 years old and is a soccer star, and you would never ever beable to tell anything was ever wrong with her. I really pushed my daughter and stayed on top of it.
From my own experience peds tend to err on the side of "nothing to worry about", but if you feel there is a problem that could be helped by early intervention then by all means seek an official evaluation from an occupational therapist (OT). That being said, kids do walk at very different ages. The average is 13 months but the range is from 9 months to 17 months for the majority of kids. Because he is so large he has to deal with having a higher center of gravity which makes it much tougher and requires greater strength than a slighter and shorter child so he may just need a bit more time (though a good OT will figure out where he needs to build the extra strength and tailor the activities to accomplish that). But mothers are usually right to follow their gut and seek further evals. You know your kid best. Keep up the great work :)
Big kids just have a harder time moving around. I think you can sense that he is ok just big and has a big heavy head that is why you mentioned his size. My daughter was much larger than my son and she did everything months later, I attribute this to her extra weight and height. I have a friend who's son was 35 lbs by 8 months, he was smart and could do the small motor things great but he could not move around because he really big. Once he started walking, he skipped crawling, he caught up just fine and you would never know that he was slow to move around as a baby.
Moms can't help but compare their kids to others their age. Try to relax and listen to the dr's.
You are doing lots of good things to support your little guy's motor development. children typically are taking independent steps by 15 months. I totally agree with the recommendation to check out early intervention. They will do a complete evaluation at no cost to you (in most states) and be able to figure out if it is weakness, balance, his size, being cautious, or a combo of all of the above. If you decide to go the out-patient route, definitely see a Physical Therapist, as their expertise is large muscle movement, balance, and walking. (I am a PT who works in EI) One thing you can try in the meantime is to reduce the amount of help you give your son. Can he walk with one hand held? Start with that. When he only needs one hand and can move in a straight line, it means he is relying on you less and doing the postural things he needs to walk. You can also put some heavy stuff like bricks, bags of popcorn, canned goods etc in the little shopping cart so that if he does lean on it a bit, it isn't going to flip on him. You can also practice that sit to stand transition by sitting in front of the step or stool so that you are ready to provide balance help if he needs it but also there to cheer him on to stand up longer. Hope this has helped.
Sounds to me like you already are concerned! :)
I think that given his size he has a reason to be clumsy. However, given his history with his hips it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to keep his gross motor skills under scrutiny. If you are going to err, do so in the side of caution.
But that's just me. Follow your gut.
And keep up the good work!
