not weight bearing/crawling at 13 months. paranoid mum!

[mommie]

my dd is bum shuffling everywhere but doesn't bear weight on her legs, crawl, pull herself up. in everything else, she is fine. a paediatrician today said it could be low muscle tone in her lower legs and mentioned cerebral palsy which i found frightening. is it really so unusual for a baby to be just bum shuffling at 13 mths?

afaik bum shufflers tend not to walk as soon as crawlers prob cos bum shuffling is more efficent at getting to where they want. 13 mnths is still young to be walking anyway Isnt the average 16 mnths or something?? I wouldnt be worried unless you have concerns about other aspects of her development.

and the sooner they walk the more mischief they can get into so count your blessing while you can

No, not unusual at all.
Ds didn't bum shuffle, but he didn't walk until 14 mths.

TWO of his friends were walking at 8 mths - yes really - two of them walking quite proficiently at 8 mths !!!!! - one little boy didn't walk until 16 mths.

Hopefully not cerebal palsy.
But bum shuffling at 13 mths - very, very normal !!

dd1 didn't crawl at all and didn't walk until she was 14 months. As your paed said, low muscle tone and cp are certainly a possibility, but no more than that - it's certainly not unusual. I guess he/she is more concerned with the non-weight bearing than the crawling.

My friends' ds didn't move at all (even bum shuffle) until she was two. They were told it was the far end of "normal", but still "normal". I just thought how lucky they were to have a baby that stayed where he was put!!

she? he!

Mommie - please don;t worry too much. DD didn't bum shuffle until 12 months and wasn't weight bearing at all until she was over 14 months old - was 15 months before she decided to 'pull herself' up and it took until she was 20 months before she walked. She's now nearly 26 months and you would never know she'd only been walking 6 months.....she runs everywhere now!

I do realise that what the paed has said could be worrying - especially the CP stuff - but if your dd has met or is hitting all her other milestones including the 'sitting by 9 months' one, then I really don't think you should be worrying.

It is good that you are being looked at by a paed just in case though....as clearly none of us are in a position to definitely say that nothing is wrong. What has the paed suggested as your next steps?? ('cuse the pun here?!)

Normal, IME. I've had three bumshufflers: dd1 walked at 18 months, ds at 20 months and dd2 at 19 months, but only because cruel mummy sent her out in the garden with no nappy on cos all her trousers had worn out.

Age of walking is highly heritable worth checking out at what age you/dh took your first steps. The weight-bearing thing is part of the bumshuffling package at 14 months dd2 would hold her legs out in front of her like a little plastic dolly if you tried to get her to stand.

Unless you have specific reason to suspect problems, or there is overall poor muscle tone, it's unlikely to be a problem.

Hi hba!

Quick hijack so sorry Mommie - but hi Frogs, how are you?? Seems like ages since we've had a City Meet Up but then I also haven;t seen Kayleigh on here recently.... All fine with us - I'm 11.5 weeks pregnant with #2 and scan on Monday - very exciting!!

Nor did mine pull themselves up till quite an advanced age (details lost in the mists of time!). None of them was mobile at all until after 1st birthday. Also, none of them learnt to roll over at the appropriate age, which I think is also part of the package -- they spend less time on their fronts, so are never in postiion to crawl. Apparently bumshuffling has become more common now that babies are put to sleep on their backs.

Frankly if one of mine was walking at 14 months, I'd think they'd sent me home from the hospital with the wrong baby.

Get it checked out by all means, but don't lose sleep over it. Most docs don't really understand bumshufflers. And make sure you get someone to capture her bumshuffling on video, to embarrass her when she's 14...

hba -- how exciting! Another little bumshuffler cooking, perhaps!

Maybe we should organise a city meetup -- lunch at Starbucks on Appold Street or something?

Sorry for hijack! hba and I have a little bumshufflers club thing going down here. Want to join? So much more original than boring old crawling...

I also had 2 bum shufflers - dd walked at about 16 months, ds at 20.

I got loads of stick from my hv boh times but just ignored her.

The main problem as far as I could see was that trousers wore out!

Mommie - actually Frogs has a point about the hereditary factor. The only thing my Dad can actually remember about my baby days is the fact that I used to bum shuffle and not only that, but for a long time also bounced down the stairs on my bottom too!

Frogs - we should do something definitely - I'll start a thread later on today...unless you'd like to do one now?

very helpful messages - felt a bit sick earlier on but genuinely am trying not to worry. Doc wants to see dd in two months' time (she mentioned MRI scans and physio). Will double check on hereditary issue. it's a bit circular all this, cos i would imagine low muscle tone is partly a cause of bum shuffling. DD doesn't need to use her legs so muscle tone is rubbish. In fact the doc said as much.

Mommie - you've hit the nail on the head with the circular theory and that's exactly what my HV said to me when I first raised dd's lack of weightbearing to her. Bumshuffling uses a different muscle set than crawling and therefore bumshufflers have a tendency to walk a lot later as the muscle tone required for weightbearing and walking develops later...

I had a friend of mine who is a very good physio check out dd hips and leg movements just to check that their was nothing 'physically' wring with her...which is maybe why I was a bit more relaxed about her progress - that and having someone like Frogs to share experiences with!! !

Also, bumshufflers walk later because bumshuffling is a far more effective way of getting about than crawling is. The child can look ahead and around without having to crane his/her neck up, and they also have hands free to carry stuff. The only downside is it looks a bit silly, but 18-month olds don't seem to bother about that!

You may hear being bandied around a theory that the cross-patterning involved in crawling is essential for brain lateralisation (specialisation of the hemispheres of the brain for certain tasks, particularly language) and that bumshufflers may therefore be delayed in other ways. Out of my three, dd1 was a very early talker (complete sentences before two years), ds average (good vocab at two, but not much grammar) while dd2 is a late talker still doesn't say many recognisable words at 23 months. If she'd been my first, I'd have been paranoid about her so-called delayed development being my third, I know it's not directly linked and that she'll catch up in her own good time.

Hope you feel better!

neice was a bumshuffler. she had legs/hips checked out by paed, and she walked at 17months. she never crawled IIRC.