Milestones and development

Is there anyone who works with children or can offer advice from own experience? I’ve always had a feeling my son is a few months behind his peers in terms of milestones. I’ve raised with nursery and they say he’s doing what he should but is probably on the later end development wise across the board. Every few weeks they’ll mention he’s not quite where they’d like speech wise, but still don’t go as far as to say he’s ’behind’ or anything. I think it may be more a confidence thing with speech at nursery than anything to be honest. My son doesn’t run or jump yet and still loses balance easily when walking so he uses his arms to balance a lot and holds them quite up still. He point blank refuses to walk outside most days so I end up carrying him as he also refuses the pram. What can I do about this 😭 people keep saying just stop carrying him and he will walk but it’s not that easy as he literally will sit on the floor screaming rather than walk and I can’t do that to him. In terms of speech, I’m not as worried about this as his gross motor skills, but nursery mention speech more than anything. He says quite a lot of single words (probably like 30-40) but I think I understand a lot more of what he is saying than anyone else as they aren’t all very clear words. He isn’t putting 2 words together yet and nursery have said they’d like to see him start doing this soon - I really encourage him with his speech and I think he will probably start putting words together in the next few months. I did read online the milestone for this is 2 years old and he’s a couple of months off 2 yet. Does this all sound normal or is there any red flags at all? He’s 21.5 months for reference.

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The walking outside is something we have at the moment too, I quite often end up having to put my daughter in the pushchair crying and hope she stops crying. I usually have to give her food to achieve this. It has meant we can’t really go for walks anymore, which I’m a bit gutted about. Movement wise, my daughter can’t jump yet, she’s really trying and has possibly got both feet off the floor at the same time once or twice. She loves the “hop little bunnies” song which is the main time she tries to jump. Maybe singing this with him and jumping at the same time could encourage him. She didn’t start walking until 17.5 months. My daughter is already 22 months, her speech is really good, but the other things sound pretty similar. One of my friends little boys wasn’t talking much at over 2, they went to the Dr and they said they don’t really worry/do much until they’re 3. This was quite a few years ago, so things may have changed now. Have you had a date for 24 month HV check? Xx

Hi, I’m a speech therapist. We tend to not worry about speech sounds until they’re a little older. Sounds like he’s got loads of words and still some time before he’s expected to put 2 together. Do you feel he can communicate what he needs generally? Try and keep things out of reach so he has to ask for them and model the word back to him when he attempts to say something. Have a look at bbc tiny happy people for some speech and language advice. My little one struggles to get both feet off the ground when jumping and can be unsteady when he’s going too fast.

@joanna Hi, thanks for this. It’s really hard when they don’t want to walk isn’t it? Whenever we go anywhere it seems a constant battle and I’m half dreading days out over Christmas if things are still the same :( Thanks - he does love that song and we show him how to run/ jump he’s just not there yet. But he is quite unsteady walking at times so maybe not a surprise. He also didn’t walk until 17.5 months but just seems to be making very slow progress with milestones. That’s reassuring re speech. We’ve not had a date for the 24 month check but I’ll give it a few weeks and ring the HV if nothing has come through xx

@Michaela Hi, thanks this is really useful. I feel like he mostly communicates what he wants and even if he can’t say the word, I understand what he wants most of the time. There is some of the usual frustration as sometimes he’s telling me things and I don’t understand but on the whole he communicates ok I think. He will tell me he wants certain songs, like he has his own name for them or can show me one of the actions from the song. I’ve not heard of the tiny happy people thing so I will take a look at that, thank you x

It is tough, my hope for Christmas things is that there will be enough things motivating her to walk forwards or just sit and chill in the pushchair 🤞. The whole milestone think is a bit frustrating as if you look things up on line it gives the impression it’s a bad sign if they’re “behind”, but if you seek support, they’re not concerned until quite a bit older. It’s sounds like he’s well on his was and going to get there, just might be a bit slower than some others. Also sounds like you’re doing plenty of things to encourage him. We found with our daughter when we started pushing her to walk just holding one hand she then just refused to at all even holding 2 hands so we just had to leave her to it. Xx

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