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.

With the box vs clapping thing, I think that's just their personalities. I found it really weird that DS1 didn't sit up unaided until after he could crawl and even cruise. It turns out he just hates sitting still and even today at age 10 he would rather do anything that does not involve sitting. Lying down is fine - sitting is anathema. He rolled fairly early and only briefly discovered his feet before deciding that other things were more interesting to put in his mouth.

DS2 has more of an exploring personality and is doing loads of things relating to using his senses and finding out more but has not done the same things as DS1, he can roll but hardly ever does, even when he gets distressed about being in the same place - he prefers to rotate instead. He doesn't seem to see rolling as a way to get around like DS1 did. He is obsessed with his feet and constantly tries to eat them and can often be seen pressing his toes together and trying to control his body better. DS1 didn't really do that. It's much harder to make him laugh than DS1 as well, DS1 tended to do more social things at earlier ages whereas DS2 will just study you with this air of "Is this how to human? Must observe humanness"

I think DS1 is more of a doer and is very social whereas DS2 will be more of a solitary explorer. I've never met a baby who is so chilled out and happy to be left playing on their own while I wander round the house and get things done, which is handy.

I haven’t had any issues with walking at all in the last 46 years, I’m dead good at it. However I apparently didn’t think it, or crawling were worth bothering with until very late in the day. I was happy to sit in the middle of my toys and books like a little Buddha.
I really don’t think this alone correlates to developmental delay.
I was an early and voracious reader academically very able, Oxbridge from a local comprehensive, blah, blah.
Try to resist comparison. Happiness in life doesn’t automatically correlate to physical or intellectual prowess. My youngest daughter has an amazing capacity for happiness, she is also severely physically and cognitively disabled.
Being good at things and/or being attractive can definitely help in life, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Some babies who are super-efficient at crawling are actually quite late walkers as they can manage just fine crawling, thank you very much

I think this is true. DS was crawling just before he was 7 months. Only just took his first steps and he is 15 months old now. I don’t think it’s the crawling or walking that is an important skill per se, more the ability to get around and explore in general.

DS commando crawled until he was cruising too (was so grateful, because when commandoing, he'd fit under the coffee table - one of those ones with an undershelf - and I'd panic he'd disappeared until I heard the bonk-bonk of his head from under it!)

He was pootling around, but no-one was home upstairs - no lightbulbs flashing at all he just did whatever sprung into his head next like a bingo machine. He didn't speak a word until he was over 1, and not more than one strung together until he was 2.5.

Now he's 8, doing well at school, and you can't shut him up (whereas his physical prowess has tailed off - he is adorably unco-ordinated).

I really think they just have a limited amount of points to spend, and they pick and choose like levelling up a character in a computer game. DS channelled all of his into getting upright (so he could get his hands on the remote control)

It's perfectly normal in our culture to take on the task of raising the most complex brain in the animal kingdom without any prior knowledge of how to do a good job of it.

Oh bore off, mums that care (like the OP) do a great job without needing anyone carping from the sidelines. We are allowed to ask questions, mums don't take a vow of silence, we talk to each other. Its normal.

I had no idea about kids before being a mum, but I look at my amazingly successful adult daughter and fantastic teen and I can feel pretty sure I did a bang up job of it, muddling through with my family and friends.

Did you have an awful childhood MirriVan?

The fortunate thing for the youthful MirriVan is that there is (and presumably was) broad consensus on the correct way to rear healthy and emotionally stable rabbits. Any three books you obtain from the library under the broad heading 'child rearing' will tell you a completely different way each to do it, whilst assuring you doing what the other two say will undoubtedly damage your child. Beyond the basics of feed them, clothe them, exercise them there is almost no consensus as to what makes a happy (which seems to be your main focus) child. Because people are rather more complicated than rabbits.

So we ask each other; we watch each other; we watch each other's babies. We learn to parent by how our parents parented - sometimes we learn what to do, sometimes what not to do, but we learn. Interestingly we are the only species that requires a manual to know how to raise our young.

My baby never crawled. He bottom shuffled for a few months at most and then went straight to walking. Every child is different. If he seems like he is trying to pull himself up on furniture he'll be fine

I had no idea about rabbits before I got mine as a kid, so I took out 3 books from the library on how to care for them. I'm sure they'd have lived if I hadn't, but the research made me a much better owner than I would have been without.

Before I got cats, I didn't get any books, but I did talk to friends who had had cats, and went online to the Litter Tray on Mumsnet and spoke to the animal rehoming place about what we needed to know.

Before having children I spoke to my mum, my sister in law who had children and friends who had children, I attended nhs baby classes, visited the HV and talked to other mums and went on mumsnet to ask questions and voice worries. The trouble with books is they may be instructive, but you cant have a conversation, and if your child (or rabbit) doesn't follow the book, then you can be left feeling more worried.

You say our culture sucks, but without the support and advice on here when I knew ds was not developing in a typical fashion, I would have floundered badly. When he was finally diagnosed last year, I was able to connect with the few parents going through the same thing around the world. This wouldn't have been possible without social media and the culture we are in right now. There are many things that are pretty shit about it, don't get me wrong.....but parents being able to voice their concerns online and face to face, about their child's development without being brushed off, and with a better awareness on the importance of early input if there are issues....is one of the good bits

My first baby never crawled, she shuffled on her bottom, looked over her shoulder to check and adjusted her course accordingly! Possible reflects that I was dinghy racing up to 7 months.

MirriVan stick to rabbits. Parenting is a bit more nuanced than reading a book about rabbits .

I can’t belueve the way this thread has turned.

First time mum talks about her worries about her son’s development, which is totally normal
and understandable, but instead gets berated for not celebrating his successes

Mumsnet at its best as usual.

The thing is, it's the parents who read the books who very often have these kinds of worries! I certainly am/do. The most relaxed, 'who cares if they're crawling, they all get there in the end' parents I know wouldn't dream of reading a parenting manual.

My health visitor told me that commando crawling is crawling. Along with bum shuffling and the strange one legged drag thing one of the babies at my group does! My new phew commando crawled till he was about 16 months! He got really fast!

I hope for a little bit more for my DS's life than eating whatever food he finds lying on the floor, weeing wherever he roams and living to the age of 8. I hope the rabbits weren't kept in a cage too, my DS definitely won't be. What a very strange comparison.

Crawling made zero difference to my kids' walking abilities. They walked at the same age (10 months) but only one crawled prior to learning to walk. Please don't worry about crawling style or ability. It makes no difference, whenever they're ready to walk. x

Really don't worry. Mine went from bottom shuffling to walking and missed out crawling altogether. Ignore smug mum.

Apparently I never crawled. Went straight from shuffle-bottom to walking. One of my DCs was the same. It's nothing to worry about.

@mirivan

The problem is, no one knows the best way to do it. All anyone in parenting manuals has is a theory. You can make yourself aware of the theories out there but to treat them as gospel is folly.

Interesting comparison...

@MirriVan Do you have children? Human ones that is.

A quick advance search reveals she does not.... Which I wouldn't normally say matters. Non-parents have equally valid views and I hate it when people say they shouldn't be on Mumsnet. But it is very easy to be oh-so-superior about how much research people should do before motherhood when you haven't ever done it and discovered that babies don't read baby books...

Apparently it's child abuse to even have children so..

My dc1 never crawled and walked at around 13 months. There were children at our toddler group who were walking at 10 months and some who still weren’t at 18 months. By 2 you wouldn’t have been able to tell which were which.