My son is 16 months old and I’m super anxious about his delays. His doctor won’t do autism screening until 18 months, but I’ve signed up for early intervention out of pocket. His appointment is coming up, they can’t diagnose him but will work on speech & pt. But I’m still just so nervous..
For some background info, he met all his milestones on time sitting up, crawling, etc.
When he was 9 months old I made the mistake of buying a large playpen, and I think this was not good for him. I know I am a terrible mom for this but I initially thought it was good for him to have a dedicated safe space to play. I’ve always prioritized him and taken good care of him yet for some silly reason I thought this would be good for him and I was wrong..
From 9 to 15 months, he was in his playpen most the day and would play with his toys, he would check in with me as I did chores and babble and every now and then throughout the day I’d come up to him and talk to him or play with him for a few minutes. I’d take him out to hug him every now and then and also take him out to change/ feed him etc and we did contact naps but it was his primary play area. When his dad got home in the evening (I have no car) we’d all do our errands. So basically he spent most his time in either the playpen or car seat/stroller….
During this time, he was very independent overall with playing. But he would not play with toys properly and I always just thought he’d learn one day so every now and then I’d show him but he never understood so I thought maybe he’s just too young to know how to properly play with them. In addition, he did start walking around 13 months but only a few steps and he still preferred to crawl.
Finally after months of me being so uninformed, a few weeks ago I realized that he was delayed and finally realized him being in the pen was preventing him from fully walking and playing with toys properly..
So we completely and immediately stopped having that be his dedicated play space and he’s been roaming/crawling/playing/ walking around the house. Now he is walking sooo much more he still prefers to crawl but he is walking 20 steps at a time. And everyday he’s just walking more and more. I’ve also dedicated so much time to playing with him one on one, more than I ever have and he’s learned to play with toys as intended. I’ve also been reading to him so much more and I’ve been pointing and just overall talking to him more. The progress he’s made has been incredible since we have let him roam free / have his toys around the house and not play in the confined pen all day.
However he is still struggling in a few areas:
-does not point
-gestures are very limited
-doesn’t bring me toys to share
-speech delay (used to be able to say dada, dog, baba but hasn’t said since)
-he does answer his name but not when he’s distracted (is this normal?)
-he does not like playing with blocks or rings and throws them
-he throws balls and toy cars (is this normal?)
-he has a very thin tall body type and a PT said he had slightly low muscle tone, however two of his closely related family members have the same body shape as him so maybe genetic and not autism related?
And excelling in others:
-great temperament, always happy
-smiles a lot
-if my bf and I are playing with a toy he will come to join us
-not overly affectionate but comes to us for comfort
-does arms up, high five (when he wants to), boops my nose
-is super engaged when I read
-has learned to play with toys as intended overall (but sometimes flips them over and chews on them..)
-nearly laugh at certain funny parts of books when I read them / nearly laughs when I annunciate words
-last week I said “the dog goes bark bark bark bark bark” and he repeated the bark bark bark bark bark part, but I’ve tried to get him to do it again and he’s only done it maybe 4x more even tho I’ve asked him like 30 times.. )
-he does babble a lot and copy certain funny babble sounds back and forth with me
-makes lots of eye contact
-follows certain commands (press the light, open the fridge)
-will occasionally smile at me while reading books if he’s anticipating me to say something funny
-took him to a kids play gym the other day and he made lots of eye contact with babies and wasn’t afraid of them
-unsure if this is good or bad but he does get distracted easily he doesn’t fixate on toys he moves on from toy to toy after a minute or so
I’m now hyper focused on every single thing he does.. like when he throws his toys his hand shakes in anticipation for it to fall and I can’t help but wonder is this a sign too? He doesn’t obsessively spin wheels but he has spun a wheel a few times here and there and it worries me too. I feel like I may be overthinking some stuff but I also know there’s delays so now I’m just hyper aware .
I’m just so worried about all this.. is this going to turn out to be autism or another diagnosis? Does he still have time? Has anyone else’s toddler had similar stuff and ended up catching up/ having no diagnoses? Is it possible that he will be dependent on us for his entire life? I will love him no matter what but I’m so scared for what this could mean.
Is it possible that with me spending more time playing and reading more with him that he will catch up? Could this all be because I didn’t interact with him too much? Until recently I didn’t point or use gestures (I’ve never really used them myself) or go out of my way to say a ton of words to him and I wasn’t the best about reading to him.