To find my child's lack of crawling upsetting?

[incywincyspide]

My son is nearly 12 months old and is still commando crawling. He started doing this about 3 months ago and still hasn't started crawling properly.

On Sunday he did start crawling differently but by using one knee and one foot!

I feel like he's falling behind other babies his age and I'm getting worried! Am I being ridiculous? It's my first child so I tend to worry about every little thing.

'I need to change my name already, all I hear is mamamama 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️'

I kind of agree with Miri - she’s just trying to express that your upset/worry/comparison re what your son is doing is likely to be worse (for you and/or him) than being slow to crawl or whatever. I think that is true. But it’s so hard not to as a first time parent and you have my full sympathies. My baby is 9 months and only 2 of the 7 in our NCT group are crawling even though average is meant to be 8 months. It’s meaningless.

He is finding a way to move around so try not to worry. Some children skip crawling and just bum shuffle or go straight to cruising. My Son didn’t crawl much at all. He could stand very steadily and cruise but didn’t attempt to walk until he was 15 months. I think he was waiting until he was sure he could do it, he is still ultra cautious.

I can remember finding it so upsetting and feeling my Son was ‘falling behind’ because he was a late walker so I know how you feel. But once he was walking he was very confident straight away.

My daughter didnt crawl until 4 days before her first birthday (barely even commando crawled before that) and then didnt stand independently until 16 months and first steps at 17 months. Shes 2.8 now and you wouldnt know she crawled or walked any later than some of her peers who were walking at 12 months. So please calm fown, i know its hard with pfb but really relax its no big deal

You wait until you get to school "mines been reading since he was 2" "mine can write a 20 page essay already" "mines a maths genius" and so on and so forth.....

You've had lots of reassuring responses already, but just to add:

DC1 - commando crawled first, started crawling 'properly' at 11 months and walked at 13 months.

DC2 - commando crawled only until started walking at almost 15 months

DC3 - crawled 'properly' from around 6/7 months and walked at 11 months

DC2, the slowest starter, is by far the sportiest child, is a very strong swimmer and just generally moves very well. All dc are different and how quickly they do things as babies usually has no bearing their abilities as they get older. Another example - DC1 was very slow to talk and didn't really get going properly until he was 3, but is very clever and articulate now (at 10).

My DD didn't move at all until she was 11 months. She then started to walk holding both hands, for two back breaking months! Then she started only holding one hand, then finally walked on her own at 13 months. Before that, nothing. Not even commando crawling. If she was on the floor she was stuck, which was a good thing... except she was constantly frustrated. Plus, even when she was walking she couldn't get up from the floor, so if she sat down or fell, she was stuck again!

She finally worked it out when she was nearly 2... Now she's nearly 5 and had no problems.

DS is 6 months and can't wait to crawl, but he hasn't got the hang of it yet. I'm sure he will. Most of them do!

My brother rolled everywhere as a baby. Rolled. Like, pencil rolls from one side of the room to the other

Me too. I went from rolling everywhere straight to walking. I suspect I decided rolling was more energy efficient and, as PP said, it was fun rolling under things because it meant grown ups had to get on the floor too in order to retrieve me!

I think if there's other stuff going on - so other gross motor skills are absent, or seem to present particular difficulty, or communication's an issue (by which I don't mean just talking), then that's what I meant by 'other concerns'. But it's the focus on one particular thing in isolation that I think can give rise to unnecessary upset. I'm assuming, OP (and of course I may be wrong), that if you were actually concerned about his mobility as a sign of an underlying problem there would be other stuff you'd noticed (iyswim).

PS - this may have already been said, but we had hard floors, which I think can mean babies are more inclined to commando crawl (it's easier on the knees, and also easier to do in general).

When my second transferred from knee walking to walking, it was the case for ages that the former was more efficient for him because he'd simply got it down to a fine art. I do think sticking to a certain form of movement longer than we might expect can have a (sensible) 'rationale' for some babies.

Yes agree Istillsaid! DD could carry toys in her spare hand when she bum shuffled so crawling made no sense for her.

@incywincyspide
Hello op - haven't read the whole thread properly - just some of yours.
My Granddaughter will be two in February. My daughter worried about her walking late - now she's zooming about, into everything - in other words, a perfectly happy, active thriving little girl.
Try to stop fretting, and enjoy your little boy. He'll do things when he's ready.
Don't compare him to any other little ones. Smile and nod politely at the "smuggies".

@MirriVan

It is also why I try and alert parents to things that damage their kids - comparing them negatively to others is a biggy. End the suffering

OK, so in the real world out there, what are you doing to alleviate any suffering? Do you work in a caring profession cleaning the bedsores of elderly patients? Do you spend your days making sure the hungry are fed and those on the streets get a warm bed for the night? Are you a researcher looking into mental health or cures for disease? Do you volunteer for the Samaritans? Campaign for social justice?

Or do you restrict your attempts to relieve suffering to insulting and ticking off anxious mothers and valorising species the internet?

Such a sanctimonious bore you are.

*valorising species death

Oh crikey I'm going back to the snow watch thread!

Winter is coming!

He will move when he moves,

DS didnt shift his backside til 18 months in any way shape or form and now he's basically half bat with the way he hangs off things at 5

DD was an absolute nightmare, quick on the uptake of everything, crawling by 7 months and walking by 10 months, now at 2 she is a gobby little bugger with the attitude of a teenager who screeches like a banshee every waking moment

Neither is easier than the other but they both got there in the end!

Haha I totally say that stuff about early moving. Believe me, I would totally be down with him not being in perpetual motion. It’s not a brag. I’m tired. So tired... ;)

I hereby apologise to all parents who feel affected by my offhand comments. Is it competitiveness though? All the other nct babies were rolling around before my boy and whilst I felt a bit like ‘when’s he going to do that?’ I doubt they were going ‘yes! My baby beat reetgoods baby’. Or maybe they were. I didn’t notice.

MirriVan - It is also why I try and alert parents to things that damage their kids - comparing them negatively to others is a biggy. End the suffering

Jinkies! Just about every parent on here has had moments where they compare their child to another - sometimes it is fuelled by a competitive element, often it is fuelled by unnecessary but totally natural worry and sometimes there is genuine concern about development.

I remember when ds was 8 months old, I took him to enrol on a baby massage course and the lady said, 'oh he will be too mobile by then, this course is for much younger babies' - ds was my 3rd child, maybe I should have known better, but it wasn't until I was in that room full of wriggly, alert, but still immobile tiny babies and saw, and compared ds - double their size, lying immobile, staring intently at only me....did it completely hit me that all those niggling worries and doubts I'd had since he was born, was because there was something actually wrong.

Comparing children is how the data exists as to what constitutes 'typical development', and gives us those windows of time where we can say, 'ok it's not time to worry'.
But it is also perfectly normal and human to look around at the other babies in the baby room or children at school and be aware of and sometimes worry that your child is not doing something the others are, sometimes that is not useful, but sometimes it is, because it means we see our child needs a bit of extra support.

I think there are some positives to comparing kids to others. I probably didn’t really do enough of it when my DS was a baby/toddler and if I had I’d have realised there was something unusual about the extreme variations in his development. Then I’d have been able to support him more appropriately.

Though with my DD I have a sort of inbuilt comparison with my DS which is utterly useless because they’re totally different.

It would be odd to meet a mum who doesn't worry about some aspect of her child's development. At the baby groups we go to there's a whole range of crawling styles and none, so you might want some more baby groups to see more examples. The one legged pull-along trailing the other leg is by far the weirdest. Mine (10 months) gets about by diving his head to the floor, then sitting up, then diving off again then sitting... It's the least energy efficient method he could possibly have come up with. He can only crawl a little if he sees a mobile phone, which has a magic capability to make him forget he doesn't know how to coordinate all 4 limbs. He's focused on trying to walk so he won't improve I don't think. You can't help but compare.

Haha I totally say that stuff about early moving. Believe me, I would totally be down with him not being in perpetual motion. It’s not a brag. I’m tired. So tired... ;)

The thing is, you think that because you've never had the worry of thinking that they may be moving unusually late (nor have I, yet, to be clear). It's like: I had three miscarriages before DS. In my first trimester with him I was frantic with worry that I had no morning sickness. People (online - I didn't tell anyone in real life) kept telling me to be grateful I felt good. Then massive nausea hit me at 11 weeks, and obviously it didn't feel good to be feeling shit - but the relief was incredible. Anxiety is a much nastier feeling than hassle. Almost everyone would rather be inconvenienced than worried.

My oldest never crawled. She was a bum shuffler and a late walker. Not wishing to boast (ahem) but she is a very successful, creative and academic young woman now, making major strides in very well remunerated field that involves innovative thinking. The fact she didn't walk until 16 months has never featured on her CV or come up in interviews, so chill