7 month old - stubborn child

[DLP]

Can anyone help. My son is seven months old and up until now he has been able to do things before he is supposed to. he could hold his head at a few weeks old. But the problem is now he is becoming "lazy". he cannot sit on his own and makes no attempt to. as soon as you let go he gets onto his front. same with crawling - he just pretends he is skydiving - have tried to get him to crawl by holding him and moving arms and legs - he would rathre roll to where he wants to be. Am i being worried over nothing? is there anything i can do to encourage him to sit on his own and crawl?

DLP, don't worry unless your baby is actually losing skills that he previously had. All children develop at different paces and in different ways. My daughter never crawled until she was well over a year old- she was quite happy bum shuffling.

Have you spoken to your HV about your concerns?

thanks for your reassurance tissy - my hv is useless - took her an hour to weigh him and do a hearing test today, by the time they did the hearing test little one was tired and not interested. spent most of the time waiting while she was nattering to other parents!!!!!

I think words like lazy and stubborn and honestly unduly negative to use with a baby. HOw about thinking of him and laid-back and doing things at his own pace instead. There is no law that says a baby has to crawl at seven months. If he isn't ready, he isn't read, full stop. You can't make him go faster than his own natural development allows - it's a waste of your time and his. He is getting about perfectly well by rolling and it suits him. He's fine! You really don't have a problem.

My DS is also 7 months and sat up for the first time today. He doesn't crawl yet (he's only just getting over his total hate of being on his tummy) and I'm really not worried. He rolls but hasn't yet worked out that he can use it to get where he wants to be

I think 7 months is earlt to be crawling; I'm sure both our DSs will be off before we know it (and then we'll wish they were staying still...)

7 months sounds early to be worrying about crawling. DD started crawling at 10 1/2 months. She did it very suddenly, and in a few minutes crawled under a chair. My attitude was that she would do it when she was ready and I made no attempt to encourage her to do so. I couldn't see the hurry, or the point of doing that. Now (18 months old tomorrow) she is walking around happily. Like aloha, I don't think it helps to see a child as stubborn or lazy. Try to stay on his side through all these huge changes and give him lots of praise when he does something new. And enjoy him as he is - he won't be a baby for long, I can tell you!

I think it is a little early to be fretting about him, especially as regards crawling. They learn individual skills such as rolling and then don't perform it for a while whilst they learn something else. It all usually comes together in the end, often quite suddenly, unless there is an underlying problem. Perhaps he just needs time to strengthen his muscles and develop motor coordination, and it sounds as if he is practising this already. Just let him move himself around and he'll probably take you by surprise.

If you really want to encourage him to sit up put a v-pillow or cushions behind and have an activity toy or mirror vertically in front of him.