No crawling or walking at 17 months - how can I help her?

[LaTrucha]

My dd is a bright and active little girl. She likes to cruise and be walked holding our hands all day long. She has just started pulling herself to kneeling in her cot (she wears a gro bag. I don't know what she'd do without it).

She can keep herself standing for a short while and has taken a very few steps if I really encourage her.

However, she has never crawled, shuffled or pulled herself up. she sometimes tries ATM to get herself into crawling position but immediately collapses on her tummy. If left lying on the fllor she only rolls 180 degrees and usually will not try anything more. If I'm aound she certainly won't try the crawling positionunless she knows I can't reach her (for example, if I'm in the shower).

She does not ever try to pull herself up on furniture, even if I try to teach her.

I promised myself not t o get stressy about this, but actually I am now. How can I enourage her?

Just to make you feel better as just stumbled across this thread, my ds didn't do anything but sit until he was 21mths old, and insisted on being carried everywhere and he was a big boy. He is now 3 and refuses to sit still, literally, I have to chase him to get him to eat his dinner !!
Also as an aside, my brother in law apparently hardly walked at all until he was 5 !!! and now he's the fittest person I know and is never out of the gym.

Really don't worry, babies aren't robots they'll all get there in their own sweet time.

I know how you feel! His class is nearing the end and we got a timetable for the next session, the teacher lady said to DS's pal that he should go to the >2 year old class as he is doing so well and then turned to me and said 'um, maybe your DS should just stay in this class seeing as he um.... can't walk yet!'

I also got the 'small' comment yesterday 'oh he's so dinky isn't he' when he is actually perfectly average on the 50th percentile! (the woman who said that though has a DD who is pretty huge though).

My DS is crawling and standing but he just refuses to walk on his own. Deep down I know he will get there in his own good time but although my friends try to mean well, little do they know that they just end up making me worried with their comments...

Hi La Trucha.

I am maybe a bit overcautious about these things but am going to break slightly from what others have said here and suggest that it might be wise to talk to your gp/hv about your dd,in light of her not sitting independently.

I only say this because my own dd was quite behind in her milestones.(She has delays in other areas also).I convinced myself to take the plunge and get her assessed at 18 months as though she had sitting balance and could bumshuffle (In an odd way) she was unable to crawl and could not weight bear and was very "Wobbly".We were referred to physio (amongst others) and she felt dd had hypotonia (low muscle tone) and some joint hypermobility.We were given exercises to help her go from sitting to standing and also to teach her to crawl.(With the aid of bribery in the form of chocolate buttons).She got there in the end.

Now obviously from what you describe your little one is fine in other areas,so obv my dd is somewhat different,but the lack of sitting would concern me a little.I don't want to be alarmist at all but want to give an honest opinion.It may be that she is slightly hypermobile or has some hypotonia that can be corrected/helped with physio support.At least you can access the system for help.dd also had her hips x rayed to exclude a hip dysplasia that could be affecting her balance.xx

hi, i know exactly what you are going through. my ds cruised until 18 months and i felt fed up with people asking if he is walking yet. i took him to my gp who told me to stop worrying as it doesn't matter how fast or slow they are with achieving something, come age 4 and they are all the same. trust me, in a few months time you'll be worrying about something else joys of being a mum! my son is 8 now and a whirlwind. my dd started walking at 10 months and have had a lot more bumps and accidents than ds did, as he was incredibly steady when he first walked. just enjoy your dd and stop worrying about other people. walking a bit later is not uncommon. i have friends whos babies started walking between 9 and 20 months!

Ilikeyoursleeves - I get 'delicate' about my DD!

wrinklytum - thanks for your advice. My DD does sit independently and has from 6 months. She doesn't get up to sitting by herself though. She did have her hips scanned when tiny as she was a breech baby. I'm going to go with a aline of very strong 'encouragement' for a couple of weeks until she is 18 months and then if she's developed nothing new I'll go to the GP.

secretgardin - other people have told me that thier children who learned to walk early have no sense of fear or common sense and later walking ones had much more control. Nice to hear. Thanks for that.

jmontan27 how many months over 3 was your DS when he started to jump? DS is 3 next week and still doesn't. I am hoping he will by the time he is 3.6 though.

DD only started walking about 3 weeks ago- she is almost 2. Thought it would never happen but it did! She cruised for quite a while but flatly refused to try and even stand on her own. Then one day she decided she felt like doing it.

All three of my DC were late walkers. One at 15 months and two of them at 18 months of which my son also never crawled he just shuffled on his bum. I fely there should have been a support group at the time as I felt I was the only one but now it seems more common. Apparently alot to do with the fact we don't put them to sleep on their tummies any more so they are later gaining neck strength etc. My niece is 16 months as does not pul up, put weight on her legs, crawl, bum shuffle - nothing but she has started to talk so all different. My suggestion is to buy her a baby stroller to put her doll/teddy in and although won't support her it will make her feel secure and she will be so happy pushing it around she will walk without knowing it.

Anytime up to the age of 2 is considered normal for walking so i'd say she's well on her way. My ds wasn't sitting properly unaided till 10/11 months and was commando crawling for ages. He was referred to the physiotherapist by our (massively over cautious about everything) HV and she said he was fine. He was slow to get going but started walking at 15 months. Some of them just do it all at once, don't worry!

If you really can't stop worrying then your HV can refer you to the physio for reassurance

nappyaddict, I think DS2 was about 3 years 2 months when he started to jump. He is 3.6 now and can still only do little jumps off the ground. He still wouln't be able to even jump off the bottom step of the stairs with his legs together. However, bizarrely he is an expert at climbing and can get up climbing apparatus that some of his 6 year old brother's friends are still not able to. DS3 is 8.5 months and following suit - still cannot sit up and has only been rolling over for a month or so.

My MIL seemed to be really keen to get DS walking and when she was babysitting him one afternoon, her and my FIL sat opposite eachother on the floor with DS taking 1 or 2 steps backwards and forwards between them.

He loved it and thought it was a great game and was walking within days! We didn't have any concerns about him walking, but I just wanted to illustrate that a child can quite often be more than capable of doing something, it's just that it hasn't occurred to them to do it, or they really don't see the point!

If you're worried, why don't you try it and see what happens?

Also meant to say that from your post I don't think there's anything wrong, but also that if you want to encourage her along that's fine too!