18 Month Check up

Today J had his 18 month well visit with the pediatrician.

He is now 18 pounds, 28.75 inches tall and his head circumference is 17.5 inches. All three measurements are in the fifth percentile on growth charts. He's little but he is steadily growing so doc says he is doing well.

As far as his development, the pediatrician has told us time and again that boys are very different than girls in the way they develop. What may be delayed development in a girl may actually be average for a boy.

That being said, she says his fine motor skills and gross motor skills are actually slightly advanced for an 18 month old boy....which translates to average for an 18 month girl :)

However, even for a boy she feels his speech is delayed. He does try to say things but just can;t seem to get it out. He does extremely well with imitating sounds like the melody of a song etc, but can not actually form many letter sounds.

He can currently say "Mama", "Dada" "nana" (for banana), "u" (for up) and "ba ba" (for bye-bye). He can sign "again", "please", "thank you", "bath" and "cracker".

Anyhow, she did mention speech therapy however she would like to wait until he is two. She thinks that he actually may "catch up" since he does attempt to make the sounds. Plus she does not feel that at this point in time a speech therapist could do much more for him than we already do. We already name everything, point things out, repeat the words slowly and clearly etc. There is no physical reasoning for his speech delay (not "tongue tied" or anything like that) so he may just be a late bloomer. If at his two year check up his speech is still delayed (for a 2 year old boy at that point) then she will make sure we get him speech therapy.

We also brought up some issues.

First is the issue of his sleep habits. J is really great at going down to sleep at night. Every night we have dinner, give him a bath, read him a story and then lay him down in his crib while he is still wide awake. We leave the room and within a few minutes he sound asleep. No fussing, no crying, no whining. Just straight to sleep. Wonderful, right? Only he is up screaming and crying about 3/4 hours later. If I go in to him, I can nurse him and put him back in bed, but then he gets up about 2 hours later again. So I usually just end up taking him back to bed with me.

The pediatrician said that at this point there is no nutritional need for him wanting to nurse at night. It's comfort and habit now. She said it is now basically up to me when I want to wean him, but that when I/we am/are ready that would be the only solution she could think of to get him to stop wanting to nurse at night.

The other issue we have been having is that he can be a bit aggressive at times. He will often, and for no reason, bite, pinch and slap. What's worse is when I tell him "no" he usually looks up and laughs.

Well, I know this may be a point of controversy with some, but I agree with the ped's suggestion for the biting. She suggested that when he bits, to immediately put just a dab of liquid soap across his lips and tell him "no biting!". When he inevitably cries and cringes at the taste of the soap, immediately allow to drink something from his sippy cup. I'm sure some may find this mean or unnecessary but I will be doing this, because his biting really hurts. As for the pinching and slapping (which he doesn ot do nearly as often as the biting) she suggested to place his hands on his lap and tell him"no pinching/slapping" firmly.

Other than that, he is doing great and is a very happy little boy. :)