Some of my friends told me that each child have different development milestones. I was worry when I noticed my little one that he is left behind in terms of crawling, walking, climbing and running. I see some picture of babies and toddlers in my Facebooks who is the same age as my son and I can say that my son is late bloomer. At first, I and my husband assumed that the cause of delay of our son is because he is premature and eventually he will catch up but after 24 months and my son is still now walking, I got panic and pressure my husband to evaluate our son to development pediatrician. My son labels as global development delay and advice to early intervention such as occupational therapy and speech therapy.
Here are the lists of children development milestone from WebMD:
2 months – smiles at the sound of your voice and follows you with their eyes as you move around a room.
3 months – raises head and chest when lying on stomach, grasps objects, smiles at other people
4 months – babbles, laughs, and tries to imitate sounds, holds head steady
6 months – rolls from back to stomach and stomach to back, moves objects from hand to hand
7 months – responds to own name, find partially hidden objects
9 months – sits without support, crawls, babbles “mama” and “dada”
12 months – walks with or without support, says at least one word, enjoys imitating people
18 months – walks independently, drinks from a cup, says at least
15 words, points to body parts
2 years – runs and jumps, speaks in two-word sentences, follow simple instructions, begin make-believe play
3 years – climbs well, speaks in multiword sentences, sorts objects by shape and color
4 years – gets along with people outside the family, draws circles and squares, rides a tricycle
5 years – tells name and address, jumps, hops and skips.
If your child has little delays, do no panic because this could be a minor problem. Some causes of delays are parents may not giving opportunity for a child to sit alone because parents always held their baby rather than having time on the floor. Other cause is the premature birth, child who born premature may have delays in motor skills that resolves with time.
Of course, if you see or notice any signs of possible development delay, it is good to seek advice from the expert such as developmental pediatrician. Other major causes of delay are autism, hearing loss, down syndrome, cerebral palsy and mental retardation.