Learning to Crawl

We cannot thank you enough for all the enthusiasm and support after the last post, Excited to Crawl.  Your prayers and excitement over our family’s big and little steps mean the world to us.  

I realized, however, I needed to clarify one thing.  John’s next developmental step is army crawling. Therefore, that is what he is currently working on.  However, we are still in the early, early stages of army crawling.  John has a great desire to crawl and is definitely working in that direction, however he is not army crawling as a form of transportation yet.  He “scooches” some and, by even crawling an inch or two recently on the flat floor, he has made tremendous progress that we haven’t seen up until now. 

Daniel "helping" John crawl down the incline floor.  

We are excited about this goal and want John to know this, just as his advocate at the Institutes encouraged.  Throwing our desired timelines and fears out the window, we want John to know how worthy of a step army crawling is… that it is worth the effort and worthy of praise and celebration. 

So how exactly is John learning to crawl?  We’d love to share this with you!  Some of you may recall from the Caringbridge days that we have three large wooden slides in our home (that Meade and dear friends helped to build), which the Institutes refers to as “Inclined Floors.”  This is one of many programs they have designed to enable gravity to work for the child rather than against him.  The incline can be increasingly lowered until the child is crawling on the flat floor exclusively.  In concert with sensory stimulation, programs like the inclined floor give children with developmental delays the best opportunity to learn to crawl and to capitalize on the sensory, nutritional, and breathing input they have received.

John is extremely determined; we know he’ll get it!  We are so proud of our boys!  And again, we are so grateful God is proud of each one of us as we “scooch” along in life.

Here are a few videos so you can visualize John and his efforts as you pray for him!  Thank you!!

John learning to crawl down the incline floor:

John must have bear hands, elbows, legs, and knees while crawling. He also wears shoes to weight his feet a bit; he likes to keep them up in the air. 

John learning to crawl and scooch on the flat floor:

Email subscribers, click here and here to see these two videos on Youtube.

Lastly, we thought you might enjoy a short clip from John’s horseback riding session this week (Email subscribers, click here):