What is your experience? I am thinking my son and dear dil may be a bit over-anxious and have possibly unreasonably high expectations.

By Tink on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 11:18 am:

My brother was an early crawler and he crawled at five months. All of mine started between seven and eight months. An important thing to keep in mind is that crawling isn't a developmental milestone and not all babies crawl at all or crawl the same way. Commando-style belly crawling, rolling, scooting around backwards are all ways that babies find to get from one place to another and that bigger babies often crawl later than smaller ones since there is just more to move!

By Imamommyx4 on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 11:25 am:

My dd didn't crawl until after she was furniture walking at 10 months. She'd get on her hands and knees and wiggle her bum at 6 months. But I think dd was picked up and held too much that the need to get from one place to another was taken care of by all of the picking up.

By Trina~moderator on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 11:38 am:

They're all different, and some kids never do crawl. As long as they're mobile in some way, that's considered normal. A good article below.

Crawling

By Crystal915 on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 01:15 pm:

I'd say about 6 months is AVERAGE. I would have to look it up, but as I remember Shane crawled a bit earlier than Madison (probably to get to food!!), and she always "low crawled" (think military crawling stance, LOL). They started walking within days of each other, so it obviously didn't affect their walking. Like Trina said, some kids never crawl, some scoot on their butts, etc.

By Joy~bundles on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 01:25 pm:

DS managed to get himself around in lot of other ways before he started crawling at 9-1/2 months.

By Pamt on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 01:57 pm:

The developmental norms we use at work are 6 months for sitting up. Crawling is actually not considered a developmental milestone because not all babies crawl. If they do, then the typical age is at about 8 months. The key is that the baby has some form of locomotion and can get from point A to point B whether they army crawl on their bellies, scoot on their bottoms, or do as my oldest son (who never crawled, was a late walker, and is just fine) and roll over and over.

By Dawnk777 on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 02:33 pm:

Sarah crawled at 12 months and walked at 13-1/2 months. Emily crawled at 10 months and walked on the day she turned 13 months.

Sarah scooted around for months sliding around on her belly. For her, hands/knees crawling happened at a year. I don't know if this matters a whole lot anymore, but she was 4 weeks early, so I suppose I could say she really crawled at 11 months and walked at 12-1/2 months.

Also, my SIL was so convinced that if my children didn't ever crawl, that they would have trouble learning to read. I don't know if this is true, or an old wive's tale. They both did eventually crawl, but didn't crawl very long and both are excellent readers. I'm not sure what crawling has to do with reading anyway.

By Kaye on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 03:29 pm:

There are some studies showing that crawling signals certain neurons to fire and those same neurons are used in reading decoding skills. I know the OT's here work with crawling with kiddos for that reason. It isn't a developmental milestone, but something they need to be able to do at some point, part of motor planning and proprioreception.

By Reds9298 on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 09:14 pm:

Natalie didn't crawl until about 8 mths. I think, although she was rocking well before that and getting us excited! She sat up around 4 1/2mths. though, so we always say she was busy sitting up and not worried about crawling!!