Noah's 1st Buddy Walk, and crawling questions

[faithhope]

Hi Everyone! I have no picture to share yet. I have to have hubby teach me, yet again.
Well yesterday was noah's 1st Buddywalk and I was sure that it would be emotional for me. Sure enough as we got to the parking lot I started to cry ( my husband never knew). I was happy to see all those people there to support ds. I was excited and nervous about seeing kids, especially older kids and adults with Ds. Didn't know what to expect, but it ended up being the most positive experience, I left feeling exhilerated, exited about Noah's future. We met a great yound couple. She is 25, he is 30, their 1st child a boy has Ds, and they had another boy immediately afterward. She was 22 when the had the 1st! Well we had a lot in common.
Noah slept through most of it! He did get some cute pics, one with Spongebob the other with Fred Flinstone. i will post those soon.
So it has been a long time since I wrote about how Noah is doing.
He will be 10 months soon. He had a PT coming once a month for about 45 min. since he was around 7 months. So I was no satisfied with that. Noah was doing everything that he does from his own account, he is a very energeticf bundle of love. Learns really fast.
I called PARC, they got me into the Homebound PT. His new PT is AMAZING! She comes once a week for about 2 hours. She loves what she is doing, very experienced. So now I know Noah is going to learn so much. Who knows where he would be now if he had started with her months and months ago. Oh well, I know that I needed the time to adjust being a new mom and a Ds mom, so I have no regrets.
Now I have a question or 2.
She is working on getting him to crawl. The first time she came he did wonderful and did everything she wanted him to automatically.
Now he fights it all the way. He hates to do anything remotely therapeutic.
Is this normal? Any suggestions of how you encouraged your baby to crawl.
If we let him do his own thing on his tummy, he gets in the lion pose, or he tries to "fly". I don't know if it is too painful for his joints of muscle. When I put him on the couch, rather than mats on the floor, he seems to do better. We just bought a mattress cushion type thing. It helped at first, but already today he is back to fighting me on the crawling. I will start with just that for now. I have many more questions ;D
Now that Noah is older, doing more I am working with him on learning more, not just playing. I do try to make it play time though.
Hope I made sense.
Also Noah sits up perfectly on his own, he has good balance and strong core and back.
Hope all your kids are doing great.
Also I lied one more question.
Should Noah be seeing a speech therapist now?
Oh also here is what I thought would be the link to Noah pic in the Ds gallery. His pic is right before the gorgeous Brook!!!
www.parenting.com/gallery/Baby/A-Special-Joy-7-Babies-With-Down-Syndrome/1
Love,
Jess

[Googsmom aka Jennifer]

I'm so glad you found a PT you like Jess. Brook was very stubborn w/ therapy too when she was little. She hated PT, too much work She only liked OT. Now days she hates OT and loves PT. Go figure. Her girls think it's funny but not momma Brook did that butt scoot for soooo long I can't remember when she actually crawled. I will guess a yr or so. If I woulda been more persistant probally sooner but she went from butt scoot to crawling to walking all in like 6-9 months. Wasn't very long. She only walks now I can say don't let Noah do the butt scoot. It hurt Brooks feet/ancles/knees b/c she did it for sooo long. I had no idea it would hurt her little feetsie's but now we just got fittled for braces b/c her feet are now turned in Her bones in her foot are turned that way too. Sucks!! It will come and one day you will turn around and there he will go. Get your running sneakers ready ...LOL
It's almost due date for #2 isn't it? Only a few more weeks eigh? I can't wait!! I'm so glad you had a great Buddy Walk Brook went to her first one this year too. Isn't it great all the people

[steffipoo]

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

wow I am soo glad Noah is doing so very well... Aren't the buddy walks the bestest? Talk about the most relaxing supportive happy enviroment. You are so lucky to be receiving so much pt at home and with such an experienced provider. Olivia resisted bending her knees to the utmost at his age. She crawled at 14 months but not your typical bent kneed crawl. She did the BUTTS UP str8 legged race. man could she fly like that although after a few chin spills on the sidewalk she definately wanted more to bend her knees. Olivia didn't receive one on one speech till she was 2. Prior to that she had hers in group at her center based ei. What I would do with her is have her look in a mirror and perhaps try to mimic what I was doing with my mouth. Especially when she was sitting up as she loved to look at the cute baby in the big mirror I set up against the wall. She'd kiss herself it was soo funny. Basically with us we would sing songs for everything. She really loved it and paid attention to what I was doing with my mouth and try to imitate. Also when riding in the car would point out OHHHHHHHHH Look at the BIG TREE. simple short descriptive words.Signing n saying simple wants n needs. MORE and ALL done were a big one in my house as well as her favorite one which was EAT!!! :)She furiously would sign n say MORE when I was feeding her LOL my little chubba lubba loved her food. I think just being really expressive with how you speak to him and speaking in a very succinct manner exaggerating the words in a slower manner and smiling big when any try came out of her mouth really helped her. A few months after Liv started crawling butts up I started trying to get her up our carpeted stairs by motoring her thru by bending each leg with gr8 resistance from her right left etc and putting her fav loud light up toy at the top was motivating for her. But prior to that she cried if I tried to have her bend her knees too much and I just let her go more at her own pace cause she broke my heart as she rarely cried. Good luck to you both it's all very exciting I bet. (((HUGS))) Steff

[steffipoo]

hey I have an idea. Maybe if you put him on his back and play like he's riding a bike by bending his knees and circling em know what I mean? Sing a silly song and give him lotsa smiles while doing it and it may distract him outta being so caught up in hating bending his knees and get him more used to that position.

[CC]

"I left feeling exhilerated, exited about Noah's future."

;D ;D

Oh I can so remember feeling that way all those years back at Christopher's first buddy walk. It really is a cool feeling

CC ~

[damarasmom]

What great news! He is doing so well and I'm so glad that you had your 1st Buddy Walk experience! We have always loved going, I've always felt like it was just 1 big family. As far as therapy, Damara always goes in and out of wanting to participate. He'll change I'm sure, but singing was a great idea, kiddos love songs.
Thanks for the update, he is doing so well. Good job MOMMY!!!

[faithhope]

Thanks Jenn and Steff!!! Well I feel alot better now. You are right Jenn he will walk eventually, it seems at these times hard to imagine sometimes but when I think of all that he does do already and always learning more all the time, he is amazing. Oh as for #2, I can't believe we are more than halfway there, sometimes it seems like we are right around the corner from meeting this one and sometimes it seems life it is still forever away. It is getting more and more difficult to carry and play with Noah = (, that makes me so sad. I feek worried and a little sad that Noah is going to not be the only baby in the house sometimes. I can't wait for this next one, but I hope that Noah does not feel jipped at all!
Steff you made me laugh so hard picturing her Olivias butt in the air crawl.!!! I love the idea of putting him on his back and playing bicycle, that is good. We do that one but not often at all, in fact I haven't done that with him in a long time. I am going to ask PARC about speech and OT.
What is OT exactly by the way?
Thanks Again!
Thanks Steff

[Googsmom aka Jennifer]

Occupational Therapy. (i'm sure I spelled that wrong ) Sometimes it's hard for me to tell what the difference is. Brook's OT does things now days like play dress up, ride the car/motorcycle toy, put lids in a can through a little slot etc while PT makes her to calastenics (sp)...LOL kidding. Right now they are working on keeping feet/legs straight when walking and playing. Just a bunch of playing all the way around. I do the most work being the Speach Theripist and all. I just scored a laminator at a sale for $5.00 I did all her flash cards and words. She loves it The bicycle idea is a good one. My mom did that all the time but she calls it run a race

[Googsmom aka Jennifer]

OK you know me, photo time. This was OT last week

[Emilysmom]

Sorry Jessika.........I'm afraid it's been too many years since Emily crawled, so I don't remember. But I know that once she started crawling, she LOVED it and was all over the house!

I loved the pic of Noah (and beautiful Brook too!).

[Jessie]

Sounds like things are going great for you and Noah!! Noah is going to love the new baby - you shouldn't have any worries there.

I don't know what age Jason was when he started crawling, but I know it was the 'commando' crawl. Jake (non-Ds) didn't have any interest in crawling until he was almost 11 months!! Walked right after that, so you just never know. They all have their own little internal timelines for doing things.

Oh my gosh, the babies on that link are sooooooo stinkin' cute!!!! Kinda almost makes me want to have another one . . . just kidding.


Jessie

[Chris]

It sounds like Noah is doing great! Sometimes I don't think there is a whole heck of a lot you can to to speed up the milestones. We always had tons of OT and PT when Sarah was a baby but she didn't reach those milestones until SHE was ready. For instance, I would go to every Ds website I could find and read, read, read. It seemed everyone's kids would commando crawl for a long time before they would creep (on hands and knees). Sarah showed no interest in crawling since rolling seemed to get her where she wanted to go and she was also very fast. One day, I took her for speech and ot and while both therapists were in the room, she got on her hands and knees and crawled across the room! ;D From that point on, she would crawl.

BTW, you would have thought the PT was trying to kill her. She always HATED physical therapy. She really started fighting at about Noah's age. I have no idea what you can do to make it more fun.

Chris

[jelanismom]

Oh Jess...sorry for missing this thread!
I have so much to say, but gotta do some things for Jelani first .
Noah is the sweetest thing I've ever seen! (ok second sweetest ) So glad your 1st buddy walk was a good one for you...I'll be back later. Dawn