2 years old and can’t walk

[FirstTimeMum0]

Hi my little one turns 2 in March, has only just started to walking inside the house. The second we go anywhere outside he will just drop to the floor refuses to even stand up or take a single step outside. I have mentioned this to health visitors who don’t seem so concerned. Am I in the wrong to be worrying about this?

I think it would be a good idea to push for a referral. He will still be behind when he starts school and it will all become massively stressful for him as well as you then.

My son was also behind in many ways, and when he went to school it all became massively stressful and now I've had to take him out and home school him because it affected his MH in the end. I'm so angry about it because nobody listened and he was left to sink.

I’m sorry you feel like no one is listening OP, it can be a lonely world as a parent when you have a gut instinct that isn’t necessarily being acknowledged.
Ultimately there may be absolutely no concern, I’ve known 2 yr olds (Ive been a childminder for 12yrs) only say ball, car, mamma, dadda, more, but I’ve always been confident that they understand more than they say, for example, responding appropriately to an instruction ‘Benjamin can you find the blue car’ and then they go and get it.
Does your child express an interest in other children and try and join in? Communication skills are benefitted from lots of social interactions. Often children learn more from one another than they do adults (especially in early years)
I saw another poster said there is no substitute for a book, and I absolutely second that. Hairy Mcclary and Julia Donaldson books were our favourites. If there is rhyme and repetition it really helps children pick up on the cadence of words.
Also narrate everything you do, you may get sick of the sound of your own voice, but just talk, ‘Sally, mommy is going to get you some milk’ or ‘mommy is going to chop you some banana’ obviously the words can be changed to fit the vocabulary you use in your home but it really does work.
One final suggestion, if your child does have any words, repeat them as you hear them and then extend it. So for example your child says Cup, you can then respond ‘yes it’s Kevin’s cup, it’s a green cup’ This gives context and meaning to words

Maybe it's a sensory thing? I would defo go back to the GP and push for them to try and look into it, how long has he been walking inside?

He’s the same age as my son and sounds significantly behind in some areas. You’ll have the two year check soon so you could wait for that or push for a referral now. Can you go privately?

He isn’t two and he is walking. So you have absolutely nothing to be worried about.

@Dolamroth is right. Both my children had glue ear which wasn't picked up by the GP. After the first one, we kept taking the youngest for checkups. The first one had real ear infections and got grommets as soon as we realised there was a problem. He had to have speech therapy to pick up the sounds he'd missed - sounds for speech are learnt in a specific order and he had to learn those sounds. He was picked up relatively early.

The second never had ear infections. We did get his ears checked but the GP never found anything wrong. His speech was limited and awfully hard to understand. A speech language teacher said he was developmentally delayed. I took him for a hearing test. I could see the tester's face and I could see that he was failing very badly as she having to really crank up the sound before he reacted to put the marble in the basket.

He got grommets privately within the week as the ENT specialist had a cancellation on her list. The ENT specialist said that the very first thing to suspect with a speech problem is a hearing problem. GPs are very good at spotting an ear infection with a bright red ear drum but the signs of glue ear are much more subtle - a slightly pink slightly convex eardrum. Glue ear waxes and wanes but even if it is intermittent it affects speech development.

My son fooled doctors, childcare staff and his first useless speech language teacher who should have known better. He was very very good at picking up non-verbal clues and probably taught himself to lipread to a certain extent. Yes, he too had to have speech therapy.

While we were waiting for the grommets. the advice was to get down to the child's level without any background noise and make sure the child is facing you when you speak. Speak slowly and clearly. I was shocked to discover my son was so deaf that if he couldn't see my lips he didn't know I was speaking.

You can self refer to physio where I am so I'd definitely look into that as a first point. If healthcare aren't helping, self refer to social services and ask them for an occupational therapy assessment and a needs assessment

My dd was like this. She could walk happily inside but once we were outside she would either yell or only walk if she clung to me. Then one day we went to a new park and she forgot to cling on and rushed off and climbed a blooming climbing frame. Absolute drama llama.

My DS didn't walk until he was 23 months, he was premature at 33 weeks but he's 8 now and perfect. Not sure I'd worry to much.

I think the not walking is unusual at his age. But alongside his lack of speech, comprehension, and fine motor skills(cutlery skills) I'd be quite worried.

Mine were late talkers but very early movers and both could use a spoon, knife and fork at a year old. I think its rare for them to be slow at everything.

Does he walk around indoors at places other than your home? How old when he started crawling?

Based on the lack of speech as-well then I would push for a referral and get an overall check at the gp.
I think your health visitor isn’t listening properly to your concerns.

Why was it classed as global? Did you DC have other developmental delays or just walking?

My very prem DC was 21 months when he let go of the furniture and stopped cruising. There was an HV clinic at nursery at 19 months and she observed his cautious behaviour and said don't worry. At 20 months, my Dad popped back out of the house to get something from his car. DC thought grandad was going and ran across the room towards the window, grabbing the coffee table in token realisation furniture has been let go of. DC made us wait a full other two weeks before walking in the house and out.

Don't worry - a non prem we know didn't walk until 22 months without being the teeny tiny dot our DC was

You’re not unreasonable to be concerned BUT sometimes it can just happen. My friends little boy didn’t take a step at all until he was about 22
months old then one day he just got up and walked, he’s nearly 3 now and there’s no concerns at all. Another friends little girl wasn’t walking at 18 months and the health visitor referred her to physio, it turned out she had one leg slightly shorter than the other which had delayed her a bit, she had some physio and a raised insole in her shoe and then there was no stopping her, she’s 4 now and if i didn’t know about the difference in leg lengths then i wouldn’t guess that there was an issue.

Maybe speak to your health visitor or GP about a physio referral? Although the fact he’ll walk in the house means it might just be that he doesn’t want to walk outside….they can be quite strong willed!

I also have a little boy who will be 2 in March. He has only recently in the last 2-4 weeks started using more words. If we sing head, shoulders, knees and toes, he misses shoulders and only really does eyes, ears, mouth and nose if he’s copying me. My friends little boy really struggled with speech up until about 2.5year, he only really said mama, daddy and that was about it. They started putting him in nursery 2 mornings a week at 2.5y and his speech massively improved from there and he’s just about caught up to where his peers now. Is nursery an option for you if he doesn’t already go?