9 month HV check up

[Maloneyb]

im hoping for some guidance/experience!
9month health visitor check up is coming and I’ve been hit with the usual terror stories of how awful the visit can be.
friends of mine have been left in tears following the visit as they’re told their babies aren’t developing as they should be!

im one of those people that likes to know what’s coming… so what exactly do they “test” for or look for at this 9m visit?
I know it’s guidance they’re following but I still like to know before they come and spring it on us. Then at least I can be confident knowing what we’re “behind” on without getting offended?

This isn't how the development reviews should be. I've had to go to children's centres/GP to do mine as HV don't do it at home, but they usually send a letter of appointment and include the ASQ (ages and stages questionnaire) so you can do some of the checks at home. I wasn't sent the ASQ with my first but you can find them online. Just type in 9 month old questionnaire (they have them for all months up until a certain age, not sure if it's 4 or 5 years) and then you can try the things out.

They shouldn't be trying to catch things out in a negative way, it's supposed to just highlight if there are areas that need work and how to support. But children change all the time and develop at different stages.

One of the questions is about picking up a piece of string or a Cheerio in a certain way and playing games (that I've never heard of before and certainly don't think that hinders my children's development).

It's mainly to look at fine and gross motor skills, hearing, speech etc. But I honestly wouldn't let it worry you unless you have concerns about your LOs development you want to raise with them.

We went at 9 months (although it was jsut put down as 8-12 months. DS is 1 now)
Was fine. They went through the questionnaire we had filled put before, had a chat, watched baby crawl and play, weighed him and that was it!
Was very pleasant and nice. They said DS was a little behind on 1 thing but they were not worried because usually that's the case if they are concentrating on mastering a new skill.
Hes now mastered the skill he was behind on.

They were lovely - whole thing was over within an hour. As PP said its more checking baby doesn't need any additional support and checking if you have any worries

You can look up the relevant ASQ online, though they should be sending it to you when the visit is booked

They go through a list of questions; first time they sent it to us beforehand and second time not but it’s helpful to look it up as some of the things I didn’t know if DS could do.
Both times were very nice, gave advice on how to support their development and good opportunity to ask other questions

Here's the 9 month questionnaire, if you want to have a look: https://broadwaymedicalclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/9-Month-ASQ.pdf. I would add, make sure you check the scoring sheet at the back, as they never expect 6 'yeses' in a section for 'development appears on track' – usually it's about 4 out of 6. Also, it is very common for a baby to have a couple of sections in the grey. The way the questionnaires are constructed, roughly one in every seven or eight babies will score in the grey – most of them simply because gross motor or whatever wasn't their priority that month. And a month is a long time for a baby, so if baby's 9 months today, they're more likely to have grey areas than if they're 9 months, 30 days.

@skkyelark thank you! Exactly what I was looking for ♥️

Great post from skyye, in fact you've had some very good information overall.

It's very helpful to have these assessments as others have said. If they do need some support it's much better to get it as soon as you can and this is what the system is designed to do.

Even if baby scores grey I'm a lot of areas, the most likely thing that will happen is that LO will be referred for a hearing test and be assessed again at 12 months.