Could my daughter be hypermobile?

[JKCR2017]

DD is 2 years and 3 months. She didn't take her first steps until she was 20/21 months and has slowly progressed since then. She can walk now but it isn't confident. She cannot walk very far and falls over a lot. Her walking is quite immature for her age and she walks with a wide gait. I am rubbish at explaining it. But she walks like she really struggles to do so... like it doesn't come naturally to her.

She has seen a paeditrician, he strugged me off saying that she will catch up. They are seeing her again in January but I'm reluctant to put her into pre-school because of it - I am worried she won't manage.

Anyway, friends children are younger and walked earlier and didn't take long to progress into confident walkers.

Could it by hypermobility? Sometimes it seems her left ankle faces outwards when she walks.

Also, she struggles with steps and slopes etc.

My daughter is hypermobile and walked around age 1 and has just always been bendy.
It’s really hard as there can be a big range of “normal” but this doesn’t sound normal for 2 yrs 3 months. Can you ask for a referral to a paediatric physiotherapist? Sometimes you can even self refer?

Thank you. I will look into it.Services are poor where I live. Had to push to get her seen by a paediatrician! 😕

My son is hypermobile and walked at 9 or 10 months. I don't know enough about hypermobility to say that she isn't, just that being hypermobile doesn't mean you'll walk late.... could be something else?

I'm hypermobile.
It seems very early but I'm no expert.
All I'd add is to make sure she doesn't do things that will cause damage later (look up the W position, and maybe get her to a podiatrist if there seems to be a problem with her feet - insoles can do a lot).

It's always possible, but I wouldn't naturally assume that. It could just be she is delayed for any number of reasons and actually that would be (for me) a good reason to put her in preschool. They grow and blossom when challenged with new circumstances and settings. It's worth getting checked though. I have a friend whose daughter had similar issues and it turns out she had undiagnosed hip dysplasia that just was never caught as a baby when it should have been. She had to go to physio for it.

I am hypermobile, but it never caused me any issues really as a child, except for a few injuries along the way that probably happened a bit more easily that in most kids my age. I walked around 1 and was generlly pretty developmentally advanced. It never caused me any major issues until I dislocated my knee at 14 and I've had problems mostly as an adult. My husband on the other hand didn't walk or talk until 2.5. He's not hypermobile and has absolutely no physical issues at all (or any further developmental ones, he caught up just fine after that).

I also dislocated my kneecap at 15! Had no end of trouble with my knees!
I always twisted my ankles as a child and was clumsy and terrible at sport in general, but otherwise nothing wrong really!

I would push for a scan / xray of her hips just in case it’s undiagnosed hip dysplasia. But it could be delayed walking with no real cause.
Hyper mobility can be detected by seeing how flexible her wrists are - sort of bending her thumb towards her elbow to see if it touches her wrist easily. DS has hyper mobility but walked normally at 14 months. He fell over a lot until about 5. DNeice didn’t crawl / move / wall until 2.5 years but there was nothing wrong, just delayed onset of mobility for whatever reason.

Dd' walking was delayed by hypermobility syndrome, she was very unstable and her feet turned like you describe. With hypermobility syndrome (as opposed to just being hypermobile), other things than joints can be affected, including balance and proprioception (knowing where your body is, so to speak). It doesn't have to affect all joints, so the bending of the thumb may or may not be used as a sign.

My DS sounds similar - walked at around 20 months after only crawling at 16 months. No one ever used the actual word "hypermobile", but I was convinced that he was - he sat in a "w", for example. The physio report just said that he had lower muscle density due to high joint flexibility.

I'd say it took about a year after walking before he wasn't noticeably behind his peers, for example, jumping, walking well etc. Now at 3.5 he falls over constantly, but is otherwise completely caught up.

His nursery were really good with trying to help.