For some time now I have had concerns regarding my 6 month old daughter’s development – partly it is a gut feeling there is something amiss and that she is not quite like other babies her age, partly my worries relate to the fact that she seems a bit slow to reach developmental milestones (and there does not seem to be an obvious reason for it, e.g. prematurity or extended period of illness, etc.). The following sums up her development so far:
Motor skills:
- able to slightly lift her head from birth and quickly developed good head control, yet only started rolling from front to back one day after her six-month birthday (still not rolling from back to front); can sit for about 1 minute without support and can hold herself in a sitting position well with support;
- generally seems to spend prolonged periods of time without moving much (especially when lying on her back); does not seem eager to stretch or roll to reach toys
Speech:
- very quiet, sometimes spends hours without making a sound; started vocalising at about 6-7 weeks but seemed to turn very quiet and barely made sounds for about 4 weeks from 3/3.5 months; the nature of her sounds has not changed much over time (mostly krrrrrr at the back of her throat)
Social interaction:
- was very alert from 3-4 weeks onwards, stayed awake for long periods of time and seemed to enjoy watching faces;
- started smiling at 6-7 weeks; now smiles quite a lot but only rarely laughs
I have raised these issues with the health visitor and her paediatrician (we live abroad and in the health system here paediatricians – not GPs - are the first port of call for baby health/development) but they have always responded by saying all babies develop at different rates and have not found any obvious red flags. They also say that in any case at this stage you can only adopt a “wait and see” approach. Another strange thing is that she very rarely shows hunger cues and would go for hours without a feed if it was up to her – we feed her when we think it’s about time she got something into her stomach! Not sure whether this could be related to silent reflux which she has recently been diagnosed with.
I guess what I am looking for is others’ experiences and advice on whether I should be accepting the wait and see approach or instead be pushing for more investigations at this stage to rule out anything immediate that might be causing delays? If it is wait and see, should we be doing anything in terms of therapy/exercises in the meantime? Some days I find myself going crazy as one minute I am thinking she is fine, the next I find myself analysing her every move and worrying myself sick.
. If you still have concerns in a couple of months get another assessment.