Goin' Mobile
Dec. 19th, 2007 06:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lollardfishAt the current moment, Shannon is washing dishes, I am considering a stack of exams (as in, "You're not so big! You don't scare me!"), and our son is moving across his room from one toy to another, one corner to another: his blocks, his rocket, the bottom bins in his toy shelf.
A few weeks ago, Shannon turned to me one night after the boy had gone to sleep and said, "I got a little sad today, because I realized our son would not be mobile by Christmas." I got a little sad too, and we hugged and were quiet for a little while. Such conversations are rare for two reasons - first of all, our son is not particularly delayed in any meaningful category. If Nico didn't have Down Syndrome, we wouldn't be worried that he wasn't speaking or crawling or walking, even though plenty of babies of comparable ages do all these things. We'd rely on the truisms that babies develop at their own rate and just keep encouraging out boy along. But he does have DS, we do worry, and we should worry if it springs us to action - all the research suggests that parents and therapy can make an enormous difference not just in when the baby reaches developmental milestones, but also in the long-term development. So being spurred to action is critical.
Second (of the reasons such conversations are rare), is that both of us try very hard to set goals, to track developmental milestones, but not to compare him against some chart of when things are supposed to happen. Such a path leads to madness and fear, but the charts are everywhere! Baby books are filled with them. More importantly, therapists come to the house with lists of "one-year" or "two-year" tasks that a child could accomplish. In our health care system, such lists are a critical component as one's child only qualifies for services if the child has an observable delay - or, as it turns out, has an extra chromosome. Nico is not delayed in most ways (and is within typical spectra in all ways), yet qualifies because of his diagnosis, but still the charts come out.
Nico has no physical therapist. His occupational therapist in Minnesota did both gross and fine motor, but his OT here is really more focused on fine motor (which is, after all, her job). He's done very well with gross motor - rolling over at two months, pushing up with his hands and standing (with us holding him) pretty much from birth, and transitioning into rocking in October. What I wasn't seeing, though, was the burning desire to move forward. If you put a toy out of reach, he'd find another toy. Absent another toy, he'd find his toes. He seemed content to rock and rock and rock and rock and rock - and he was, he, being smarter than us, knew he needed to build upper body strength for awhile. But we wanted forward motion. We also didn't want to encourage contentment. This may seem odd, but with DS it's important to stimulate and prod and provoke and push, as natural temperament may encourage stasis. So we prod and provoke and push, and Nico grabs his toes and giggles.
Shortly after my conversation with Shannon, I took him to a "crawler" group at Gigi's Playhouse. A physical therapist, Cathy, runs the group (herself a mom of a boy with Down's named Eddie (here pictured pretending to be Santa Claus - the white sheet is his beard, and he's saying, "Ho ho ho." The red on his face is from candy canes, I think). Cathy watched Nico rock and said that the problem he's encountering is that his hips and legs are so much stronger than his arms, so that when he rocks his hips collapse him to the ground or pull him backwards. So she gave us some tasks: "wheelbarrow" - where we hold his middle or legs as his abdomen gets stronger and have him "walk" towards items on his hands. "Parachute" - where he hold him and 'drop' him towards the floor or couch, to encourage the reflex of putting out his hands to catch and hold himself. And the use of a ramp of some sort, she suggested a nice firm crib mattress, with an object at the bottom of the ramp that he wanted. The ramp would help him move forward, what with gravity and all, and practice using hand motions to propel himself along.
Parachute doesn't seem to critical, he's got that reflex.
Here's a video of "wheelbarrow" plus ramp. We've only done ramp a little, but I did wheelbarrow a lot over the next few days.
Nico quite quickly, once we worked on this for a day or two, started to pull himself forward little by little. On the 11th, his 11-month "birthday," Shannon sent me a video on my phone that said, "He moved like two feet!" And he did, trying to get to a big blue stuffed animal. It looked a little like these videos from a day or two later:
and
So he was getting there. And now he's very good, fast, and accurate at inchworm. He still has to be worked up a little to decide that his parents aren't going to bring him the toy, as seen in this video from yesterday:
And today is even better at inchworm. We have a mobile baby. It's exciting and dangerous! We police his room rigorously.
A few weeks ago, Shannon turned to me one night after the boy had gone to sleep and said, "I got a little sad today, because I realized our son would not be mobile by Christmas." I got a little sad too, and we hugged and were quiet for a little while. Such conversations are rare for two reasons - first of all, our son is not particularly delayed in any meaningful category. If Nico didn't have Down Syndrome, we wouldn't be worried that he wasn't speaking or crawling or walking, even though plenty of babies of comparable ages do all these things. We'd rely on the truisms that babies develop at their own rate and just keep encouraging out boy along. But he does have DS, we do worry, and we should worry if it springs us to action - all the research suggests that parents and therapy can make an enormous difference not just in when the baby reaches developmental milestones, but also in the long-term development. So being spurred to action is critical.
Second (of the reasons such conversations are rare), is that both of us try very hard to set goals, to track developmental milestones, but not to compare him against some chart of when things are supposed to happen. Such a path leads to madness and fear, but the charts are everywhere! Baby books are filled with them. More importantly, therapists come to the house with lists of "one-year" or "two-year" tasks that a child could accomplish. In our health care system, such lists are a critical component as one's child only qualifies for services if the child has an observable delay - or, as it turns out, has an extra chromosome. Nico is not delayed in most ways (and is within typical spectra in all ways), yet qualifies because of his diagnosis, but still the charts come out.
Nico has no physical therapist. His occupational therapist in Minnesota did both gross and fine motor, but his OT here is really more focused on fine motor (which is, after all, her job). He's done very well with gross motor - rolling over at two months, pushing up with his hands and standing (with us holding him) pretty much from birth, and transitioning into rocking in October. What I wasn't seeing, though, was the burning desire to move forward. If you put a toy out of reach, he'd find another toy. Absent another toy, he'd find his toes. He seemed content to rock and rock and rock and rock and rock - and he was, he, being smarter than us, knew he needed to build upper body strength for awhile. But we wanted forward motion. We also didn't want to encourage contentment. This may seem odd, but with DS it's important to stimulate and prod and provoke and push, as natural temperament may encourage stasis. So we prod and provoke and push, and Nico grabs his toes and giggles.
Shortly after my conversation with Shannon, I took him to a "crawler" group at Gigi's Playhouse. A physical therapist, Cathy, runs the group (herself a mom of a boy with Down's named Eddie (here pictured pretending to be Santa Claus - the white sheet is his beard, and he's saying, "Ho ho ho." The red on his face is from candy canes, I think). Cathy watched Nico rock and said that the problem he's encountering is that his hips and legs are so much stronger than his arms, so that when he rocks his hips collapse him to the ground or pull him backwards. So she gave us some tasks: "wheelbarrow" - where we hold his middle or legs as his abdomen gets stronger and have him "walk" towards items on his hands. "Parachute" - where he hold him and 'drop' him towards the floor or couch, to encourage the reflex of putting out his hands to catch and hold himself. And the use of a ramp of some sort, she suggested a nice firm crib mattress, with an object at the bottom of the ramp that he wanted. The ramp would help him move forward, what with gravity and all, and practice using hand motions to propel himself along.
Parachute doesn't seem to critical, he's got that reflex.
Here's a video of "wheelbarrow" plus ramp. We've only done ramp a little, but I did wheelbarrow a lot over the next few days.
Nico quite quickly, once we worked on this for a day or two, started to pull himself forward little by little. On the 11th, his 11-month "birthday," Shannon sent me a video on my phone that said, "He moved like two feet!" And he did, trying to get to a big blue stuffed animal. It looked a little like these videos from a day or two later:
and
So he was getting there. And now he's very good, fast, and accurate at inchworm. He still has to be worked up a little to decide that his parents aren't going to bring him the toy, as seen in this video from yesterday:
And today is even better at inchworm. We have a mobile baby. It's exciting and dangerous! We police his room rigorously.
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Date: 2007-12-19 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-12-19 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 06:38 pm (UTC)It's interesting to see how natural temperament plays into that. My brother Ricky was such an intense baby that he obliterated every infant milestone by sheer force of will. My parents still talk about how he astounded everybody in the hospital nursery by turning himself over at the age of 1 day! He was just so MAD that he didn't get picked up fast enough when he cried that he thrashed around until he turned over. Sure enough, he turned out to be an extremely physical child and general high achiever. But not an easy child to raise, or even to be the older sister of. Oy. My youngest brother Dan was the exact opposite - so easy-going that he has a tendency to get ignored or pushed around by more assertive individuals. He didn't do anything particularly early, and was even a little late to start reading. But he's done all right for himself as well, and seems to have a very happy life.
In a wider sense, I suppose that's the challenge all of us face all the time in our own lives, balancing discontent and acceptance. If we just good-naturedly accept everything that comes along, we miss lots of wonderful opportunities. But we all know what happens when you apply the principle of restless discontent to everything that happens in your life - you end up leading a life of restless discontent.
Anyway, I'm happy for you that Nico starting crawling before his 1st birthday. No doubt he would have gotten there eventually, but it's so hard not to set those arbitrary milestones. I suppose that's the acceptance vs. discontent dilemma in a nutshell. It sounds like you guys hit the perfect balance on this one! Gratz to all three of ya!
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Date: 2007-12-19 07:08 pm (UTC)The people at Gigi's are such a great resource. Have you asked anyone there for tips on provoking his desire and curiosity? I can think of ways to try and do this (peekaboo, and so on), but there'll be some more and better advice from the experienced and expert. It does seem as though whenever you've had questions or concerns about his development, you find good answers, and every time that happens is wonderful to me.
K.
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