Please tell me my son (2.5) is not alone in his utter laziness...

[Maveta]

..ok ok laziness is the wrong word but i can´t think of the right one... at the park and generally out and about kids his age pelt around with limitless energy and ds is so.. sluggish. He´s a happy boy and has lots of energy in his own way (talks nonstop, wants to play and do stuff) but won´t walk more than about 10 metres without wanting to sit in the pushchair/ be carried etc. And this can be equally on a weekend morning not just after nursery or in the evening when I can understand he might feel a bit wiped out.

I am trying to be tougher about carrying him mainly because he´s very heavy now but if I am going further than a short walk I will take the bike or buggy because I know he will have a meltdown and I will have to end up carrying him even if just to get home.

He does clamber about the park, he can physically do it, but he´s slow and his movements seem so heavy. Climbing up a 3 rung vertical ladder to a slide can be a battle. He just wants us to lift him. I tell him to take his time etc but he really does make a meal of it. Its hard to explain. I had to stifle a giggle yesterday as he held onto the first rung, hung all his weight limply from his arms and didn´t make any effort to actually move saying "heavy mummy, heavy". I thought "too bloody right you are"

Even at nursery they casually commented on how slow he is. Sometimes we´re at the park and I feel embarrassed when a smaller kid comes along and overtakes him on the ladder and the mum kindly says "ok you show him how to do it". I feel like saying "he KNOWS how to do it, he just can´t be ARSED". Its even down to how he runs. He didn´t walk til about 15 months and took a long time to run and even now its a sluggish kind of run, like how you´d run if - well - you couldn´t be arsed. Dragging his feet etc. more like a teenager being told to run than a supposedly bursting full of energy toddler.

[disclaimer] i love him to pieces and he is a happy, sweet, secure kid. I don´t go around telling him he´s lazy or anything, I just really wonder how to up his energy levels and encourage him to get moving. He´s always been very cautious around physical activities and I wonder if its a confidence thing?

Have you ruled out physical causes like anaemia? This can make you feel bloody tired and not like bothering scurrying around?

If so, may I suggest you wait six months and see what happens? DD was a reluctant exerciser at first but now tears around at 90MPH (she's just 3 now).

Also, without wishing to be rude, how much actual tearing round do you do? Monkey see, monkey do and all that. Get a football and chase it round like a mad thing.

Thanks for replying. No, I haven´t had him checked for anaemia, tbh it never occurred to me. Its only recently I´m starting to just wonder if its ´normal´. You make a good point re. us tearing around. He is more motivated when we clamber around with him and I can see the very obvious relationship there.. but even so, the park is full of kids 18mths-3yrs all haring around like mad ´uns mostly with parents watching from the sidelines and we do have to be in there with him motivating him the whole way along. Maybe he just does need our support/encouragement. And that´s fine, I was just wondering.. I was actually wondering if he´s almost too used to us being in there with him. I say ´in there´ because it´s a big sprawling jungle gym type playground, like a soft play type thing but outside. And I do feel like we´ve always been the more cautious parents, shadowing him in case he falls off (perfectly possible and has actually happened) where most just sit back and let them go for it. Which is where I was wondering if the confidence thing comes in. Have we made him think he needs us there??

Have you checked him out with a health visitor? Does he genuinely find it difficult to move..? the dragging feet bit made me wonder if he has some coordination (dyspraxic -like) problem.

If not, the only way I got our son to walk in the right direction was to get him a toy baby buggy he loved pushing it... Nowadays kids seem to have those very sturdy scooters which may give him the motivation.

this sounds awfully like my ds.

He didn't take his first steps until 20 months, and wouldn't climb or run about for ages and ages. He was very cautious and would even crawl backwards over the (very low) doorstep.

Soft play was a waste of time because he just didn't even want to go in and anything he did was because I chased him or whatever.

I found that when he was a bit older, he was fine at park/soft play with other kids that he knew, but unknown kids were not enough to make him run about with.

He's just turned 4, and now I would say that he is as able as the others, just not always as willing as them, but overall much much improved.

I guess they are all different!

I´m in spain - no health visitors - just a (usually) condescending gp so feel like I can´t just casually ask someone about it. I read a thread about dyspraxia on here a while ago and it kind of made teeny tiny little antennae stick up - mainly regarding the way he runs - but I couldn´t really say he has anything so noticeably different so as to make it blindingly obvious. He does seem clumsy, but he´s 2.5, right?! He can ride his likeabike really well when he can be bothered, normally he goes like the clappers about 50m to the end of the road then I have to carry it (and eventually him too) the rest of the way and back. But then yesterday he rode it for about 15mins with only a little bit of encouragement to get back on and keep going several times. He can´t work the scooters at all, can´t get where to put his feet, and he can´t ride his tricycle.

I appreciate the replies

I had similar concerns about DD but at her 2.5 yr check but the HV was really pleased with everything she checked for. DD walked at 16m and has always been a careful and physically weak/slow Child.

When I mentioned her being reluctant to climb on her own (including the stairs) and lack of usual toddler madness she just reassured me it was her gross motor skills being slightly delayed as she was so advanced in other things (speech and fine motor). HV said she would catch up by 3 and she has. Just as her peers have all caught up with their speech and fine motor skills.

mawbroon and callmeovercautious - thank you so much! very reassuring stories. He is in a trilingual environment at nursery/home so maybe all his energy is going into understanding all of that at the moment! I like that theory

My son (3)- EXACTLY the same. Not interested in climbing, will only do the bottom rung, on the swings today was squealing 'go slowly go slowly!' even though he was being pushed about 2 mms.

He is enormous child and lovely too, very smart. I have sometimes thought 'dyspraxia' because of how clumsy he is and how frequently he falls over considering the speed he moves at.

Don't worry about the 'all the other kids are running about and he's not' thing though - peer pressure doesn't kick in for another year or so in this respect.

My DD (2.9) is just the same. I rarely see her run, and she is exceedingly slow on slides, climbing frames etc. I'm not even sure whether she can jump, as she is just not even the slightest bit interested. She is very reluctant to walk anywhere. We are working on this by slowly introducing certain journeys where the buggy stays at home. The first time we walk somewhere she is pretty angry, the second quite put out, and by the third time she knows this is a journey we do on foot, and gets on with it.

We also go to soft play one a fortnight, and whilst she hung back a lot a first, she now joins in well if I do.

Her gross motor development has been pretty textbook - crawled at 5mths, walked at 13mths. She's just not one of life's busy bees.

The plus side is that being a still, calm soul she concentrates well on sedantry stuff like drawing and painting, and is a dream to take to restaurants.

I hear you on the plus side too. We like going for a coffee and a croissant and can chat away quite happily for hours. He's a good listener!

Maybe try getting him something to push along (something not too heavy if you end up having to carry it). My 2yo DS will walk much more if he has his little buggy full of random toys to push along.