Developmental stage

73trix

My little chap has developmental delay. He is behind with speech and imaginative play. He understands loads and is really good with construction type play - lego, stickle bricks, puzzles etc and works things out v well. He is 23 months. One thing I wonder about is he continues to have to grab/ explore every single thing. If he sees clothes on chair, they're pulled off. Any container / box / drawer has to be overturned / emptied. He constantly scans tables / counter to see what he can grab / pull down. I watched my friends child the other day in our house - same age . She didn't touch a thing! Guess, what I'm asking is how delayed a stage this is? I would have thought by 18 months. he's a very busy little chap and maybe it just comes with his overall presentation. The only gauge we have developmentally is that at recent review, he's 9-12 months behind in expressive language but we weren't surprised as he has about 4/5 words.

bp

You cannot compare boys and girls! As a parent to one of each and watching both play boys are generally destructive- my boy and my nephews are and boy friends my friends have. Girls seem to be happier playing quietly boys destroy!

Dolbert

Sounds like my 21 month old tbh and there's no developmental delay that we know of. He's a tornado of destruction!

2xj3hplqgsbkym

I can't answer your question but I know my 19 month old son is exactly like that now too, especially as you described him scanning looking god things to pull and he can't pass something without grabbing. No sign if it stopping. His cousin ( boy also) never really wrong through that phase and at about 18 months he would build small lego and never eat it.

January

I've a 2yr 4 month old and he's still doing this. No delay to speak of. Boys are tornados.

LegacyUser

I have a 26 month old girl and she is exactly like this!She drives me crazy.Even as recently as this morning I found myself shouting because she pulled stuff off the clothes horse, just because it was in front of her.She is extremely articulate and has no developmental problems whatsoever, she just seems to have to pull out EVERYTHING.She will literally go through a room emptying boxes, pulling stuff off surfaces and generally strewing a trail of destruction behind her.I think it is very dependent on the child.

73trix

January wrote: »

I've a 2yr 4 month old and he's still doing this. No delay to speak of. Boys are tornados.

Thanks. I'm afraid I can't help wondering about his development given the known delay. Maybe if I thought he was a couple months behind in some areas only, I would be more optimistic about catch up. He was well behind with gross motor but got there. Speech is definitely poor. We are to start LAMH.

pastry2010

Hi @73trix we both had our babies in Sept 15 so they are both exactly the same age, my little man is 2 on Thursday and is exactly the same, comes out with the odd word but when you try and tell him to repeat it it's gone and he's no interest in telling you again. He loves to pull at things, flings things off radiators. He has a strange little habits loves lining things up cars, balls anything he can find and then runs up and down alongside them. Because he's delayed in speech I find I'm stressing over his little habits thinking is that normal, should he be doing that or this and it's melting my head! Just as a matter of interest is your little guy in crèche or childminders? Everyone tells me as soon as he starts that the speech will come as he hears other kids.

cbyrd

My 22 months old girl is like this, she's a tornado through a room in 5 minutes. She'll upturn the laundry basket just to get on it and jump into the pile of clothes. Drawers get emptied and presses.I keep stuff I don't want her getting her hands on out of reach. She'll climb onto the table and everything gets fired off it. I put her down and make her help me pick stuff up. Start as you mean to go on! My eldest was the same, she's 17 now...

73trix

pastry2010 wrote: »

Hi @73trix we both had our babies in Sept 15 so they are both exactly the same age, my little man is 2 on Thursday and is exactly the same, comes out with the odd word but when you try and tell him to repeat it it's gone and he's no interest in telling you again. He loves to pull at things, flings things off radiators. He has a strange little habits loves lining things up cars, balls anything he can find and then runs up and down alongside them. Because he's delayed in speech I find I'm stressing over his little habits thinking is that normal, should he be doing that or this and it's melting my head! Just as a matter of interest is your little guy in crèche or childminders? Everyone tells me as soon as he starts that the speech will come as he hears other kids.

Hi pastry. I rem you from the September babies. He's at home with childminder and goes to parent and toddler group. It's true that the speech may improve with creche
Am considering sending him once / twice week in new year for social side.

73trix

As an add on to my tornado of destruction original post, my guy can get very fixed on wanting some items -could be totally random things from a plastic bottle to a pot lid to the chopping board to a piece of cutlery - and will whine for said random item and have a mini meltdown when doesn't get it. I'm tough with this and won't give him every random thing he wants so I get 2-3 mins of screaming and tears until I can distract him with something else and he forgets and moves on. Thing is, and kitchen is worst cos the counters are busy with random kitchen things, that he could have periods of demanding every thing he sees. So there could be lots of screaming as I refuse to get caught into giving into every demand as he's only 2. I'm thinking it's all a bit extreme. He has developmental issues but my God, is this ever the case with "typically developing" kids too??

bp

Yep! My three year old still does this and my 18 month old will tantrum for a good 20 minutes, no idea why because nothing will have changed!

Marz66

They're very curious at that age arent they. Can you clean down the counters so there isnt as many things for him to look for.
Or have a few things out that he is allowed to have - plastic spatula, wooden spoon etc.

I would hide those things that hes not allowed to avoid the tantrums

Distract or avoid the tantrum is what ive read here i think

On the making a mess, i've heard lots of times that boys are just more messy and tearaway than girls! Hope he's doing good.

fro9etb8j5qsl2

My almost 2 year old girl does the 'demanding random things' tantrums too. Her speech is good so she'll ask for what she wants and when she doesn't get it, all hell breaks loose and she literally rolls around on the floor screeching while her face goes purple with anger. It's actually funny to watch sometimes because it's usually over some trivial uninteresting item :pac: A cuddle and distraction usually solves it.

My older boy never did it and very rarely had any tantrums unless he was absolutely exhausted.

73trix

My two year old has finally started to point at things of interest. I'm so excited, I could cry.:)

The "joys" of having a kid with devel delay is hoping for and hanging onto EVERY teeny step of progress that many would take for granted as kids just skip through the stages.

Coupled with the massive emphasis that there is on pointing/ not pointing, that so many professionals have shown and thus filled me with dread that he was not pointing at all for the past year...