Worried for babys development

[Worriedmamax]

Hi FTM, I'm worried about my 7 month olds development. I don't feel he's reaching milestones but everyone tells me he'll get there in his own time.
He's not crawling or attempting, doesn't push up on his arms during tummy time. He can roll from stomach to back one way only and not back to stomach.
He will not eat any purées or food, everything is pushed out of his mouth
He still needs fed to sleep and will not self soothe, he is EBF and doesn't take dummy or bottle
He can sit up for periods of time
He will bring toys to his mouth
He can't hold his weight on his feet when held up

Does this seem normal? It feels like there hasn't been much developmental progress since he was 5 months. Feel sick worrying about him.

Self settling is a mile stone. Mine couldn’t do it until they were 3/4 yrs so don’t worry about that.

The book birth to five is full of mile stone check lists. I would recommend it if you’re worried.

Sounds very normal. I have two DC and the eldest one turned out to have several developmental delays so I do know how you feel with the worrying. She has more than caught up now!

But your description doesn’t sound like her. It’s good that he can roll and sit up, the not crawling or standing is not a red flag yet. In fact crawling is not deemed to be a milestone as some babies don’t do it. If he’s still not interested in weight bearing on arms or legs by the time he’s 12 months then I’d take him to the GP but there are normally other signs of slow gross motor development. He just sounds like my youngest who didn’t crawl until nearly 10 months and walked at 15 months. She doesn’t have any problems or delays at all.

The feeding things are not issues at all, doesn’t matter that he feeds to sleep. Both of mine did that until nearly 2! Youngest refused both dummy and bottle. They’re not milestones they have to hit just preferences. With the food I’d give up on purées and just offer him bits of what you’re having, he’ll get the hang of it!

Everyone will tell you this but babies develop at their own pace. But none of this sounds outrageously out of the norm. Its great that he's sitting and holding toys and able to bring them to his mouth. It may be he has been doing lots of other things developmentally recently so things like learning social cues and communication so the big physical things are taking a back seat for a bit.

My baby fed to sleep for a loooot longer than 7 months. Like 18 months maybe. Sucking is a way of soothing to get to sleep. If they had a dummy you would just be replacing the feeding, it wouldn't mean they're 'self soothing' to sleep. Some parents 'sleep train' but it is very normal to still feed to sleep.

Babies have a strong gag reflex still at 7 months, they need to learn to move food around to the back of their mouth and this requires a differnt tongue movement to breastfeeding so keep going with the weaning to give him chance to learn that. Try him with different styles of teethers too, and maybe start brushing his teeth/gums to try and desensitise that gag reflex a bit.

The not bearing weight through his legs is a little more concerning, particularly if he can't put weight through his legs at all if you hold him up on your lap. Is he not doing this at all? Or just not holding himself up for long?

If you are genuinely worried then get in touch with your health visitor and ask them to do a development review. You could look up the Ages and Stages questionnaire for this age too to put your mind at rest until his 9-12 month review.

All sounds pretty normal. I remember worrying about my dd1 not crawling because I was comparing her to my ds1 who was very active from a young age. Instead of crawling she started bum shuffling around instead and didn’t crawl until she was 16months and then walking at 17 months. Exact same thing happened with dd2 but ds2 was very active and mobile early on.
We all compare our babies to others it’s human nature to do it. Babies/children develop at different stages, we might look at things that say they should be doing x,y,z at this age but they can’t read the ‘what to do and when manual.’

Sounds normal to me. DS crawled at about 9.5 months and then walked at 11.5 months, they do things in different orders/timescales

I always recommend Milestones & Motherhood on instagram, she's a paediatric PT and has lots of info about gross motor milestones and tips to help them along. I used her tips to help DS to crawl as he was so frustrated and it worked within about a week!

Sounds normal - maybe you need a hobby OP

How are you both getting along now @Worriedmamax?

What a nasty unhelpful comment

He's doing great now, crawling at 10 months and is pulling up and walking holding our hands now. Feeding took a while but he eats everything now and mostly feeds himself with his hands or a spoon. Still doesn't take a bottle or dummy but will sip cows milk out of a sippy cup