Walking down stairs step over step - at what age did your DC do this?

[Greaterthanthesumoftheparts]

I'm a bit worried about DSS gross motor skills. Before I say how old he is I'm interested to learn how old your DC were when they could walk downstairs step over step without help. He can go upstairs absolutely fine. he does live in a ground floor flat so aware this could have some influence!

DD has just turned 3 last week. She can do it on stairs that aren't very big - the kind of stairs you get in schools or outside in parks. She doesn't attempt it at home, although she fell down our stairs about 15m ago and has treated them with the utmost respect ever since!

Actually a good example is the stairs at preschool, she fell down them last week and now she goes down two feet on each step. She was walking down them like I do until then.

Ds has been going up step by step for a while but going down its still both feet on each step unless he goes very slowly and it's small steps. He's 3.5

Thanks trilby and rat!

My girls both did it at about 3 OP. Some DC do take longer....my friend's son was still doing it weirdly at over 4 but now he's 5 he's up and down fast.

Greater I think I'm about to make you feel better.

DD2 is 11 (yes, eleven). She still can't do this confidently without holding a bannister. And tbh at home, even when holding the bannister she still does 2 feet on each step.

She has DCD (developmental coordination disorder) and is in bottom 1% for motor skills.

Watching with interest to see what age she should have been able to do this!

Thanks for your comments and teen it makes me feel slightly better. DSS is 6 and a half. I hadn't worried about the stairs thing in isolation, assumed it was because he lives on the ground floor, his nursery was a single floor and now his kindergarten is a single floor, so he really only encounters stairs with us EOW. However, DP took him to karate last weekend and noticed he was pretty uncoordinated compared to other younger kids e.g. They had an exercise where you raise your right knee and touch it with your left elbow and vice versa and he just could not do it. Now, that could be because he also wears a patch for a 'lazy eye', so we're not really sure whether this is a problem or he's just disadvantaged in development by his circumstances.

Does anyone know of any good exercises we can do with him (besides marching him up and down the stairs!!!) that can improve gross motor skills in general? We often kick a ball around or play ice hockey/unihockey

There are exercises, DD has been recommended some by the OT, which are done at school. But as you only have him EOW I'm not sure how beneficial they would be unless your ex was on board too. Swimming is good for all sorts of coordination issues.

Are there other issues:

• fine motor skills
• organisation
• processing / problem solving
• sensitivity to sound / textures / food
• bike riding

I ask because my eldest DD1 has dyspraxia, only confirmed in year 11, which along with very poor awareness of location of her body parts, also explained a whole host of her other difficulties. It would have been better if they had been recognised much earlier.

Thanks again teen yes getting DP ex onboard could be a problem. He does swimming but riding a bike is a problem, well actually riding isn't he can cycle fast but starting and stopping without help is our current challenge :-) funnily enough fine motor skills seem OK, he's good with tiny Lego and his pen grip and writing has massively improved recently and he loves drawing. DP and his ex have joint sessions with DSS psychologist so I might suggest he mentions something there, relations are fairly good at the moment so hopefully they can have a good discussion.

That's good if it only gross motor skills and nothing else.

How is he with jumping? Sounds odd I know but can he jump so that both feet leave the ground together and land together? Can he do it both from standing and also when jumping off something?

Also if you throw a large ball to him from a short distance away how does he catch? With his hands? Or does he hug it with his whole arms, or do the scoop catch, where he scoops it against his chest to catch it?

I think jumping is ok, will take a look at the weekend. Catching also I think is ok. Thanks for all your inputs.

I'm 37 and I struggle to go downstairs unless I do both feet then one foot down. 😳 I also need a hand on the balustrade and I struggle carrying ds up and down.
Your comment about the eye is interesting- get his vision tested for depth perception and 3D vision. Things like steps can be a challenge if you have issues with either because you're not sure where your foot is when you put it down.