100% guilty of this...

[CluelessButTrying]

I have just read this article as I have been poking around Google for help: www.janetlansbury.com/2011/03/9-reasons-not-to-walk-babies/ and I have to admit I am guilty of this right from the start of encouraging DD to sit up. I have pushed for her to move on to the next developmental milestone at each point by "helping" and now have a child who can walk, but can't actually get herself to the point of sitting from lying down, let alone crawl or pull herself up to stand.

I am currently spending the whole time, helping her back on to her feet when she falls down, as leaving her to try for herself, results in mega meltdown through sheer frustration. I then feel awful for leaving her to struggle for so long and I give in and help her back up. (I know this is counter-productive, but she literally just gives up trying to help herself and focuses on screaming instead).

Has anyone got any experience of this or any advice on helping her to go back and develop the missing skill set? I feel so bad for interfering and in a way actually setting her back in her development, even though she was walking by 11 months?!

[Bejeena]

I followed the advice in that article pretty much to a tee never put my baby to sit or stand or walked him, I just let him get on with it and he did it when he was ready. This meant he didn't sit up until about 10 months or walk until about 16months and perhaps it did make my life easier at the time, I don't know.

However at the time everyone thought I was mad and doing him an injustice and that basically I was weird for not walking him around and that I should be seeing the doctor since he wasn't sitting. But I knew I was right, he got it all in the end and as a 2.5 year old you would never know.

What I am saying is don't feel guilty, there are plenty of people who have done same as you and in the end they all turn into toddlers and nobody will know. You have not done your baby any injustice.

I can't help on the acute problem though what does she do when you lie her down on floor on her tummy, does she roll at all?

[minipie]

I think the article is a bit unfair. I 'walked' DD1 a lot, from an early age, because she went through long phases where it was the only thing that she wanted to do. It was that or a permanently grumpy baby. Not me trying to push my baby, just trying to keep her happy, like we all do. DD2 wasn't bothered so I didn't walk her.

I also helped both DDs learn to pull up, in the sense that I put together a cardboard box with heavy books in it (and toys on top) for them to practise pulling themselves up. You could try the same? Once mine could pull up they learne to crawl - I think they needed the pulling up to develop upper body strength iyswim.

[CluelessButTrying]

Thanks for the boost Bejeena, that does make me feel a bit better about it. I think I probably am expecting too much of her at only 1yo and that she will eventually get there - it just seems a very long way off! Unfortunately, when put on her tummy, it's much the same. She will roll over, only to the left, but from both back to tummy and tummy to back. When she is on her stomach she just adopts the skydiving position however and just cries if left too long, or again gives up and puts her head down on the floor and sucks her thumb.

I have tried many enticement techniques to encourage up on to hands and knees, but she just collapses and her legs slip down and she gives up. I've been trying to encourage her to pull herself up on the cot bars lately, and if you support her bum, she does just about manage it, but she is just missing the strength in her arms and manoeuvrability in her legs that crawling gives?! (As minipie suggests).

Minipie - my DD is much the same, demands to do what she wants, or we all just end up with a grumpy crying baby...

I just find it really difficult to see her getting stronger when's she's so unwilling to try.