My baby is 9 and a half months old, he is my fifth baby but there is a nearly ten year age gap between him and my next youngest.
My DS is a very contented, smiley little boy and we all adore him. However I don’t think he is progressing in his gross motor skills, very well.
He can roll from his back to both sides, but has only rolled over once completely. He can’t sit unaided on his own but he does sit forward on the couch or in his high chair. He can bounce himself in his jumperoo, but doesn’t really weight bear on his legs when you hold him up on your lap.
I have two autistic children, one who did everything super early and super fast, walking at 9 months old. The other hit his mile stones at the average age.
I am starting to think my Baby DS may be autistic too. He spends a lot of his time sucking on his tag blankie or finding labels on his other toys and sucking on them whilst repeating the sound ‘Ahh’ over and over again. He also stiffens his legs and arms and pants when he gets excited. Most recently he has begun to flap his hands at the wrists a lot too.
He had a traumatic birth, induction ending in ventouse, where his shoulders got stuck and the ventouse came off. Once his head was born they saw his umbilical cord was double wrapped around his neck, so tight his neck was bruised and they had to cut it off then and there before his body was born. He was in shock when fully born and rigid, didn’t cry for around five minutes but his apgar score did recover from 6 to 9 within a couple of minutes. He then had problems looking to his left for a good few months and developed quite a severe flat side of his head.
The other thing I am worrying about is that maybe it’s me, maybe I am not doing the right things with him as such a large age gap means I have forgotten a lot of what I was like with my older four.
A typical day will start with milk, some time in the couch with his rattles and taggy toys, then onto his floor mat for some rolling practice. After a nap he might go in his jumperoo or walker for a while then have his lunch and might watch a bit of baby Einstein on YouTube. After a nap at lunchtime I usually take him out in the buggy for a half hour walk in the fresh air. The rest of the afternoon is a mix really of alternating between floor, couch, jumperoo and so on. He has his dinner then a bath, bottle and bedtime for 7pm. Most nights he now sleeps through until 7am. He has some baby books that I read to him once a day too.
Am I doing enough? Should I be doing more?