I am going to take a cue from Kevin’s post on Kendall’s five year milestones, and do something similar for my son Frank, who just turned three this past weekend. I find it helpful to have some idea where other kids are at, and I hope this will be helpful to others.
- Frank has been rolling over both ways since he was four or five months old. He then began a long developmental plateau with no new major milestones for over a year.
- He started sitting when propped into place at 2 1/4 years and sitting fully independently at 2 1/2.
- He started pulling himself up to a standing position about a month ago and now does this daily.
- He pulled himself to standing in his crib last week, and we finally had to lower the mattress for safety!
- He switched from rolling as his only mode of transport to scooting on his bottom. I love to see him moving around the house vertically!
- He is not yet crawling and doesn’t seem to enjoy being on all fours.
- He seems to enjoy rolling balls. If you roll one to him, he will push it back. He rarely plays with toys. However, he loves books. And he is surprisingly gentle with them. He will flip pages in a paper book without ripping any. And he purposefully turns pages in a board book to look at all the pictures.
- He has started waving bye bye and saying “bye” when someone prompts him. And I think a few times he has done it appropriately as someone leaves a room with no prompting.
- His teachers tell me he signs “all done” at school, but I haven’t been able to get him to do it for me yet.
- The teachers also tell me he will open and shut his fists for the “open, shut them” song they sing at school and then put his hands in his lap, which is part of the song. But again I haven’t been able to recreate this at home yet.
- Although his fine motor skills allow for turning pages in a book and possibly some signing, he does not use them to put food to his mouth. He will pick up food to look at it and then drop it but has not yet made an attempt to self feed. Nor does he put other objects to his mouth.
- He is entirely oral fed. He takes three to four bottles of infant formula per day and a good sized breakfast and dinner of puréed foods. Recently he has also taken small amounts of very finely chopped food, but he tires of this quickly.
- He usually wakes at least once per night but is usually quickly pacified with a bottle of water. He will fall back asleep.
- He is extremely social and interactive now. This is hugely gratifying because for so long he was almost entirely non-responsive. When he was six months old, we thought he might be blind, but now his eye-contact is focused and intense.
- Uncommon for a child with 4p-, he has not had any seizures that we are aware of. He has had two EEGs, the first of which resulted “normal” and the second “abnormal”. So we don’t know what to make of that, but are grateful not to be dealing with seizures or seizure medication.
- We have had him enrolled in equine therapy (hippotherapy) for about a year now, and we think it really aided his balance and trunk control and strength. We like to think it allowed the sitting to be possible and that the other milestones he has recently achieved are related to his time on the horse. Regardless, he definitely enjoys going. He is noticeably excited when I pull into the parking lot of the stable.
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Happy Birthday Frank! I hope his day is filled with happiness. WOW, on all of his accomplishments – way to go Frank! I know you will continue to break the barriers and prove all the doctors wrong. Sending you love and birthday hugs from Kristy and Dylan. 🙂
YEAH FRANK!! You are amazing little buddy! I can’t wait for Ansel to follow in your footsteps – lead the way!
very encouraging!!
What a cutey! So happy to hear about all his progress. Keep up the good work.
He is soooooo handsome!! I have been trying to post acomment from my tablet but it always says the CAPTCHA Code is incorrect…..so I stole my dauthter’s labtop 🙂
I just had to mention how cute he is.