7 month old is very behind?

[LJ17xx]

My son has just turned 7 months. I feel like he is very behind. He was 5 weeks early(4 pounds 6oz). He doesn't sit by himself or crawl and has just learnt to turn from front to back and back to front but has only done this a couple of times. Is this to be expected?

That’s not ‘behind’, there’s a very wide range of normal. My NCT group ranged from crawling at 5 months until 13 months! Nothing ‘wrong’ with any of them, babies just do things at different times.

It doesn’t sound like he is behind at all. Many full term babies won’t be sitting or crawling at 7 months. My DD2 was full term and she didn’t crawl until 9 months and she couldn’t confidently sit unaided until them either. She’s now a perfectly normal 6 year old.

It wouldn’t be unusual for your DS to be a little behind his peers but it doesn’t sound like he is at the moment, honestly.

Sounds well within normal still!

He was premature, and that slows down the usual "milestones". We went through the same with our son who was about 7 weeks early. We were told by the HV to feed him more as he was under-weight - which we did, but that caused poor sleeping patterns etc. In reality, if you knocked 7 weeks off the charts, his weight was fine. Same with crawling, walking etc - always a few months later than we expected. Instead of thinking of his age from the date of birth, think of his age as being from his due date instead and you'll find things work out better.

Thanks everyone