...as in Physical therapy, or as our Pediatrician said, Henry's Physical Trainer. Hmm, i'm going to use this post to sort out how i feel about today's 9 month check-up and our PT referral.
First the facts. Thankfully Henry's back in the clear with his weight. He's no mega-baby but he is growing steadily on his curve which is the important thing.
He's about a week shy of his 9 month birthday, but he had his Pediatrician check-up today. We had been a little curious about his development. He scoots backwards and pivots on his stomach but he doesn't get up on all fours, crawl, pull-up, or heaven forbid-- cruise. He also doesn't wave bye-bye, say mama and dada and mean it, or any number of other amazing things his contemporaries seem to do these days. He is the happiest most calm baby ever, amazing at engaging even non-baby types, and a wonderful sleeper and eater, that said he's got his work cut out for him.
The Pediatrician suggested we have a consult with the PT because he's behind in his gross motor skills. She said that since he was nutritionally lagging for awhile, his muscles were a bit behind on their development and that the PT could give us specific exercises to do with him.
He's also supposed to move to a sippy cup by 1 year so we came home and planned to structure the rest of the day around crawling and pulling-up practice and sippy cup etiquette. Instead the day was amazingly warm for Chicago in winter so we took a long walk and worked on all his homework a bit later. Amazingly he seemed to figure the sippy cup out pretty well tonight. I used the one without a valve so Henry was fairly wet at the end of the experiment. If he seems to remember how to operate the cup i'll move him to one of the valve ones that's harder to get liquid out of but also has handles.
The Ped. gave us a questionnaire we're to fill out when Henry is 10 months old about various developmental milestones-- gross and fine motor, social, communication, and problem-solving. While he can do a few in each category already, he can barely do any gross motor skills and can do all the fine motor skills. This led us to a fun conversation trying to guess what he could be when he grew up with excellent fine motor skills and terrible gross motor skills. Right now i'm going with decorative wood carver, but we're open to suggestions.
3 comments:
Wow. Your ped.isso proactive. I think it's a good idea, though to listen to her expertice. In my opinion, Henry is following his Dad's ways- observe, engage and establish himself in his world from a sitting position,then in his own time he will tackle life from his feet. Does she know his Dad didn't crawl?
Yes Tamra, I agree. it's good to have a proactive pedi. The questionnaire sounds like a good idea too. My pedi doesn't do that but I really like that idea.
I have two thoughts (actually I have more but I'm sleepy...and lazy).
1. I think being proactive is great, I love that your doctor takes time and asks questions. I think that information in all of its forms is useful and I would like to hear what the PT had to say...
2. I also have 2 babies and both missed major (but totally different) milestones. They both made up for it eventually. In fact, every one I know who has a baby has one that has missed one or more milestones.
I am glad you are taking the news the way you are (and not like I did which was crying and repeating that I was a bad mommy and that this all can from activities I took part in during college).
Kiss Henry for me!
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