Annoyed with myself for even posting this. I swore I wouldn’t go down a rabbit hole and i’d enjoy my final child but here I am and would appreciate your input.
She’s not pointing. She doesn’t point to request or show interest- however, she very often has her index finger in the “point” position but doesn’t do it.
In a nutshell- is this a problem? She’s 17 months next week. She surely should be pointing. An example, she was tired last night and saw I had her bottle of milk. She just whinged and cried and that was her way of telling me she wanted milk, she didn’t gesture.
Her tantrums around food are off the scale. When a meal is finished there’s hell to pay. It’s definitely a very intense tantrum and she takes a while to snap out of it. She’s not easily distracted.
Here’s why I get confused because her language is good. But shouldn’t pointing come before language? Her social awareness is good too and she’s very switched on. But where’s the bloody pointing?
If something interesting happens then she looks to me for a reaction. If a phone rings she pretends to answer it and says “Hello” She claps at appropriate times, waves bye bye, says bye bye, says hello and waves hello.
Repeats lots of words. If I ask her to say a word; she can say it. Understanding seems fairly good - for example “Where’s the light?” She looks at it and says “There it is”
“Where’s your head?” Touches her head.
She counts to 3 and if she does something she’s proud of, she instigates clapping - She’s learning to walk and after a few steps she wants you to clap.
But why is she doing all of this but no pointing? Isn’t that the pinnacle of typical development and shouldn’t it come before all of the above? Is it strange that she’s saying words but not pointing?