For many months, perhaps even a year or more, my son has utilized the sliding method to go down the stairs in our house and crawled up the stairs. When he slides he turns on his stomach and literally slides down the steps. People who have never seen him do it always remark the first time they watch him that they have never seen any child go down the stairs in such a manner or that fast. Literally he slides down the stairs, I don't know how but it does not even look like he is hitting any bumps and he goes so fast that I always marvel at how he does not lose control and just keep on sliding.
His physical therapist has been patiently working with him trying to teach him how to stand erect, put one hand on the wall and use his feet to step up the stairs. My son is too small to reach the hand rail and for a long time he was even too small to step up adequately. It isn't something a person normally thinks about but the normal height of a step can be a bit too tall for a little toddler who can only raise his leg so high. So my son just slid and crawled. He mastered this method and was content to go up and down the stairs in this manner even when he saw friends over on play dates running or walking up and down the stairs.
Well, all this changed (rather quickly) in the last month. Finally, he is getting a little taller and after practicing with a ton of encouragement from his physical therapist, who faced a great deal of reluctance in my son, he began to change the method he used to go up and down the stairs.
First going up he no longer crawled in the literal sense, instead he began to place his feet on the stairs while still using his hands. It was almost like he used the plank position to go up the stairs. Then my son realized shortly thereafter that if he stood on the bottom stair he could reach the light switch. He recently figured out he was tall enough now to push the light switch to the off position - which leads to a lot of dark rooms in our house (good for energy saving but not for trying to get around at night). Standing up on the last step led to him willingly stepping down from the last step to the floor.
After this discovery, my son's improvement was relatively quick. Now realizing he was tall enough to step down, he became more comfortable with standing up and stepping on the stairs while walking up. At certain points his fingertips reached the railing but he also discovered that he could balance just as easily holding one hand against the wall. So he began to walk up the stairs. There was much celebrating by the physical therapist as well as by mommy, daddy and sister when this transition occurred.
Within a couple of weeks after he began walking up the stairs he was bold enough to walk down the stairs with the physical therapist holding one hand and his other hand against the wall. Then he walked down by himself with just his one hand on the wall! We were so excited! Now, depending on his mood he likes to walk down the stairs bracing himself against the wall (while mommy hovers by nervously because mommy is still anxious that he might fall and is not entirely comfortable with the idea of him walking down the stairs by himself) or he slides down the stairs. Most of the time it is half and half. My son will slide down the stairs until the landing and after the landing he will walk down. But he always walks up the stairs now. It is really encouraging to see him take the new steps in his development (literally and figuratively). Now all I have to do is stop his older sister from teaching him how to jump off the living room couch.
No comments:
Post a Comment