Anyone have a late developing baby/toddler who eventually caught up with peers?

[alexh]

Ds is nearly 17 months. Never crawled, walked at 16 months, still insists on being fed, only has about 2 words. am I right to be relaxed and juist assume her will catch up eventually?

God yes. Chill. Nothing to worry about!

My DNephew walked at a similar age although he did commando crawl before that. He also has very few words yet (he will be 2 in Feb). Once he did start walking though, hew was quickly all over the place.

yep DS1 was on of those. Never crawled, walked at 18 months, didn't talk until he was 2yrs old. Couldn't write his name until he started school, couldn't read anything before starting school either, pictures only started to look like 'pictures' when he was in the last term at nursery. He was well into nursery before he built anything other than towers with bricks.

He's now in Yr1 and flying - infact sat watching him read his reading book to himself the other night. The books is at the higher end of the reading levels 'expected' for his age and he read it brilliantly - and he'd only got it that day! He makes the most amazing creations with sticklebricks and normal bricks, draws wonderful imaginative pictures etc etc etc. I sometimes struggle to remember that he was 'behind' at all his 'key development' stages.

dd1 (4) walked at 17 months, never crawled, is still a bit slow on running and jumping etc. Never shuts up.

dd2 (2) walked at 22 months, never crawled, and can climb better than her sister. And she insists on being fed when she is tired and grumpy.

Don't worry, even though I did and started numerous threads on the matter

Thanks all. I really am no worried but do get a bit hacked off when parents of children of similar ages go on and on about how many words their kids say. DS has two but one of them is "aeroplane" (you can tell he lives under the flight path in West London.....)

2 words at 17 months is absolutely fine - not 'behind' at all.

I think they do what they're interested in. DS is very physical, walked and climbed at 14mnths, didn't really talk til about 2, even now at 3.4 much prefers physical play than sitting down doing things. DS still not walking (19mnths) but has lots of words, likes books, painting and playing with dolls etc. Just different kids. J

jackie, I think you're right that being interested has a lot to do with it....with my ds he was fairly early with talking and walking and people have sometimes commented in the street about how 'advanced' his speech was, when he was a toddler....but with him it's his fine motor skills that seem 'delayed', eg he still can't write his name and the pictures he does are pretty much scribbles - I was amazed when I saw other reception kids in his class the other day doing recognisable shapes!

But there is zilch wrong with his understanding, so I don't worry. There really is a huge range of 'normal' with these things and it's just about concentrating on the strengths they do show.

alexh - sounds familiar, one of ds's first words was helicopter! (We live close to where the local police holicopter is based, so get them overhead quite often).

In answer to your question alex yes.My dd didn't sit up till 15 months, walk or talk until 2 1/2 and was behind in every way imaginable.She did have various health problems that caused all of this and yet now at nearly 4 you'd never know.

The only thing i'm waiting for her to catch up on now is growth ,and even that is starting to happen at last.It's so hard not to worry all i ever wanted to do was find other people to reassure me their dc had caught up.Hadn't discovered MN then though!

my nephew walked at 24 months... never crawled...slow to do everything else too. Speech was very slow coming.
He's now 11..and is completely fine. i think he was pretty much in line by the time he was about 4/5

hilariously just found this message...........(am now posting under a different name.

For the benefit of those who worry at c18 months, this has been opur experience now we "know" our child better.

He is now 3.3. He feeds himself absolutely fine and eats pretty well - talking is totally average, although have to admit that when I see little friends of his who are having detailed conversations at this age, I do have pangs of worry. But he is perfectly capable of asking me to turn the light on, me telling him that it is broken, and him saying to me"dont worry mummy, we can mend it with a light bulb". I think he's fine......

Much more clear why he walked so late - he has a very well developed sense of danger and is very physically nervous. So climbing (wbhich he can do) is something he chooses not to do and he hates swimming becuase he is terrified about going under.

Starting to play with other children but honestly is more intop parallel play than actually talking to them (as are most of his male friends).

I think the point to emphasis is this is a child he did everything - and I mkean everything apart from letters and numbers and colours ( v good at these) at least 3 months later than the average. He is totally NT, if pretty high maintenance but needs a firm hand and very very clear boundaries and discipline - which tend to work a treat.

Hope this helps other parents who are worried about late developers......!