Austin has been working extra hard in therapy. A while back, I wrote that he was on the brink of walking. And well, he was! For some reason, he’s “stalled” as far as Physical Therapy progress goes. He’s decided that he will only walk with his walker…for now. His Physical Therapist isn’t worried. He progressed like crazy for the first 4 months. He’s more and more stable on his feet! It will happen…it could be next week or it could be next month.
A lot of people don’t realize that children with Down syndrome are developmentally delayed. In other words, their gross motor skills, fine motor skills and speech milestones don’t generally happen according to the typical milestone charts. I still get emails from babycenter.com telling me my child is “an expert runner” this month. I’ve learned not to read those emails (although sometimes I do peak)…and sometimes I even mock them.
The bottom line is that you can’t look at the typical charts. In fact, you should throw those charts out the window if you have a child with Down syndrome. In the beginning, the delays bothered me. I would obsess over every little exercise we learned in therapy. I had to learn to stop obsessing. In doing that I’ve learned that Austin hits milestones when he wants to and on his terms.
I’m impatient by nature and having a child with Down syndrome has taught me to slow down and enjoy the little things. I’m not going to rush the milestones. We appreciate them so much more…even the small ones. The most important thing to remember is that children with Down syndrome WILL do everything that typical children do. Some milestones may take longer to achieve than others…but they WILL achieve every milestone in their time.
That’s all for tonight:)
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