Development Journal

All babies develop at different rates and I have fully embraced this truth with Aiya. I don’t worry about what she’s supposed to be doing for her age as I did with my first, constantly referring to my copy of  ‘What To Expect – The First Year’ to check if my little boy was where I thought he should be developmentally. We let Aiya take the lead and we focus on the things she is doing on her own.

Aiya has low muscle tone so she has to practice a lot to do anything physical, for instance to pick up an object and transfer it from one hand to another. One challenge we had when helping her develop this skill was the size of her toys. Aiya has very small hands, which are conditional of primordial dwarfism, so we had to improvise with things she could play with. I would cut up larger toys with parts dangling off so that she could grab them easily and her favourite ‘toy’ was a tissue as it is light and easy to manipulate. Being able to pick up objects and practice manipulating them improved her hand eye co-ordination and now she is holding her bottle on her own, which is amazing.

We take baby steps with Aiya and every task is broken down in to very small stages, to help her achieve milestones which are routine for most children. She needs constant encouragement and reminding that she can do it, and for her to practice her emerging skills. Aiya’s current physical target is to roll over which she did for the first time last week to get to a toy that was out of reach! She hasn’t done it since as its hard work for her and it’s easier to shout for mummy who will come get whatever she wants… yes she’s got me wrapped around her little finger, but she’s also communicating with me to get what she wants!

As part of her personal, social and emotional development we are focusing on turn taking, the key elements of this are making eye contact, recognising and being responsive to people and being able to show a special attachment to people. We’ve had a good few weeks, as this week she’s been taking turns when playing a game where she makes an ‘aaaaah’ noise and we tap her mouth to create a ‘wah wah’ sound. It may sound small but this game also demonstrates an understanding of cause and effect which is another big concept for her to grasp. Just to give some context of where we are with Aiya developmentally, we played this same game with our son at 6 months old and Aiya is now 15 months old, in all honesty I did not think we would get this far, but she amazes me every day. She is so determined and loves people interacting with her, she may not always respond but I know she’s taking it all in and processing what she hears and sees. I’m so proud of my little pumpkin!