Did you have a baby who was very physically cautious?

[Iimetree]

If so, how did they turn out?

I’ve just been to a 1st birthday party with my DS, and it’s really struck me just how physically cautious he is in relation to other children. He’s always been a big boy, in terms of weight, length, and his head etc and I do know there’s a link between that and slightly delayed gross motor skills.

But I think it’s also his temperament too. He’s never been one to clamber or wriggle; in a ball pit he just sits in it and plays with the balls, but today there were eight month olds bouncing all over the pit and scampering up and down the soft play. DS is much more of a stationary type of baby. He would never think to climb up the soft play steps.

He will bear weight, he will stand at the sofa and play, and he will roll and push up. He can do an assisted pull to stand (if he sits on our knees). But he can’t transfer from sitting to lying or vice versa. He isn’t crawling or cruising.

He was in the grey zone for gross motor at his ten month ASQ but the nurse said she wasn’t worried as he had been the fourth baby that day in the grey zone and she thought the gross motor questions were too advanced for that age!

I wondered if anyone else has had a very physically cautious baby and if so is there anything I need to be on the lookout for in the future? Do I need it be concerned and if so, what about? How did your babies turn out?

Bump

I think the Nurse, was it your HV, gave you slightly duff information there. The gross motor skills section questions are on the whole fine however the assessment is designed in a way that it is unlikely for your LO to score white in every section. Babies will naturally focus on different skills at different times so the scoring is only a concern if they score grey in more than two areas or score in the black in any area.

It might be worth doing the 12 month Ages and Stages when he reaches 12 months and seeing how the two assessments compare

So DD1 was less stationary than you describe (at ten months she was crawling and cruising), but she was very cautious as a baby and young toddler. I wondered if at the time we'd have to encourage her to push herself a bit out of her comfort zone, but she's 6 now, and it's not really been a factor. She was a bit later to the top of the climbing frame than many of her friends, but on the other hand, she rode a bike without stabilisers before many of them – all that time spent learning how not to fall over as a toddler apparently paid off!