Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Henrik's progress

Henrik is of course developing a little more slowly that a normal kid would and has weekly sessions of physiotherapy to help build up his muscles.  He is now 15 months old and still can not sit up on his own, crawl or really even drag himself along.

He can however roll like a champion.  Especially since we returned from holiday, we have noticed that he is pretty much a rolling speed demon.  Last week I had to install all the baby gates at stair locations to ensure we don't have him rolling himself right to the emergency room.  Funny enough, the therapist says there does not seem to be too great a reason that should not be dragging himself (robben auf Deutsch) or even crawling, he is just too lazy to do so when he is having a good time with all the rolling.

Among his favorite toys is this trapeze thing, that he likes to drag all over the room.  
But here is Claudia doing some sitting up exercises with him.  When you help him get there, he can sit up with both arms propping him up.  Claudia tells me that last week he also held himself up with only one arm while using the other to play with a toy, but I have not managed to see that in person yet.
He can even maintain this keeling position, all ready to crawl if the lazy bones would just get to it....
 I am sure that at some point Henrik will realize that added mobility can open up whole new realms of fun, but its slow going and all we can do is encourage him.  You can't force a baby to do your bidding, otherwise he would already be bringing me snacks as I recline on the couch.

Here is a final video of some Henrik moves.  Not his best rolling, but it gives an idea of his technique and there are some smiles in there, which are always a pleasure.



3 comments:

Jay Rymal said...

Hey, just curious, does Liam do a lot for Henrik? Ie fetch things for him etc? I've seen other 2nd and 3rd children develop mobility slower just because they don't have to since their siblings do everything for them. Must be nice :)

Fraser Anderson said...

Liam does not do much for Henrik unless we ask him to. Mostly Liam just wants to cuddle with Henrik all the time, which can be a little overwhelming for the wee man.

Henrik's mobility issues are all coming from the down syndrome. If anything he gets more motivation to develop from the regular therapy sessions.

Shelley said...

I love those smiles and laughs. He's gorgeous.