May 04 Developmental milestones for a toddler in hip spica #DDH

Watching your precious son / daughter growing up has to be one of the best privileges that there is.  I am enjoying my time with Erin so much at the moment and as she is my third (and final!) I try to savour each milestone.

Milestones have meant something different to me this time though.  With Chloe I rushed her on to each new stage, as an excited first time mum I was competitive with the textbooks and baby magazines I devoured. I measured her progress and deemed that yes I had a physically and intellectually gifted daughter!  I ticked off the age she sat, walked, babbled, jumped and could balance three blocks on top of each other.  When the health visitors appeared for reviews I was never worried, I made Chloe perform these tasks expecting the health visitor to call Mensa there and then to announce a new child prodigy.

I was a little more laid back with Dylan – he was much later to walk (15mths) but I was never concerned and he met all his milestones at pretty much age related stages.  With both Chloe and Dylan I have loved the age 2-3 it is such an exciting time, with speech developing and physical capabilities changing weekly if not daily.  The terrible two’s were not so bad, Chloe was capable of throwing a great tantrum and once launched a door stop across the room but generally they could be avoided.  Dylan was a contented toddler and was happy doing his thing.

Yet with Erin those milestones have not come so easily, reluctant to ever weight bear or attempt to walk she never hit that milestone like her peers at nursery.  Obviously we now know that her dislocated hip was causing her those problems. Yet that wasn’t where it ended, Erin’s speech was slow to develop but as a wise speech therapist told me, language is learnt through experiences and Erin’s experiences have been limited due to her mobility restrictions.  The spica cast not only bound Erin’s body but metaphorically it bound Erin’s vocabularly at the same time.

The last 5 weeks since Erin has been walking once again has seen her development go into overdrive.  It has been wonderful to see her physical and emotional development really take off.  She is now talking in sentences that can be understood by those who spend time with her, she giggles, she finds things funny and she dances.

Erin is hitting the milestones later than the books say but nevertheless she is hitting them.  I am sad that this development will be on another temporary hold over the next two months as she goes back into spica but I now know that when that cast comes off she will again go into overdrive.

Having a child in spica is tough and it does affect them in more ways than the physical mobility.  This is an area that I don’t think is recognise and acknowleged by those taking care of Erin’s physical needs. Doctors, nurses etc all recognise the physical but not the emotional impact.

However this video shows that the milestones do come and that your child won’t be held back forever.