Progression to crawling

Ryan has been hard at work trying to crawl for months now. He is slowly and surely making progress. We have been diligently working with Ryan's therapists to put him in the right positions, help him go through the motions, practice, try to create some muscle memory and so forth.

It started way back in June when he began rolling. Then he started transitioning from lying on his back into a sitting position. We've been teaching him transitions from one position to another. Once he starts doing something, he will move very slowly. Then the more he does it, the faster he goes.

He's been making some great progress and began "army crawling". Like everything else, we used to have to work and work to get him to move an inch. Then, he got it and started cruising with that army crawl. Honestly, I will be in the kitchen making dinner and will set him on the floor right near me. While I'm preoccupied with cooking, he'll make a move. I will turn around, and he's nowhere to be seen. He loves to army crawl from the kitchen into the laundry room. I have no idea why! ;)

Video of him army crawling:

We were all very encouraged with the army crawl and it showed that he has a desire to move himself around and to get somewhere. He has really mastered this and almost anytime we set him down in a sitting position, he will immediately transition to his belly and start moving to a toy he wants or something that has caught his eye. We have been so happy to see him on the move.

The next step after army crawling was to try to get into quadruped position, which means on hands and knees. We would put him into this position over and over again and he would immediately drop down on his belly. He wasn't a huge fan. The more we worked with him though, the better he did.

With all the progress that he was making, his PT said back in probably October that she thought he'd be crawling by Christmas. Hearing that made me so excited! I think his PT, Ashley, is awesome and very knowledgeable and experienced, and while there's no way to know for sure what kind of strides he'll make and how fast he'll attain his next milestone, I definitely put some stock into what she says and thinks.

That being said, November came and went - no crawling. He got to the point that he would stay in quadruped and would move his hands forward, but those legs would not move. The routine would go like this: stimulate his muscles to help him get himself into quadruped position, then start moving his arms forward until he took the hint and did it himself, and then either Ashley or I would be holding his legs/feet and move them forward in reciprocation with his arms. One of us always had to be moving his legs forward for him. We hit December and I thought to myself, "we're running out of time. I'm just not sure that he'll crawl by Christmas." I always want to remain hopeful, but it was beginning to feel like crunch time and we hadn't seen any other major progressions after the army crawling. I also didn't want to put too much emphasis on a set timeline and be upset or disappointed if it didn't work out. I tried to push the Christmas thing out of my head. We just kept working with him and doing the same routine each PT appointment.

I traveled up to Buffalo for work the first week of December and got some interesting texts on Wednesday, 12/2. I started reading and tears sprung to my eyes. I got so emotional and my heart was racing and even my hands were shaking. I was trying not to have a big cry fest in the middle of the office in Buffalo, so I had to go grab my dear friend, Stacey, run into an empty cube and tell her the BEST news. RYAN CRAWLED!!!!! ON. HIS. OWN. I was so extremely excited, but also so upset that I wasn't there to see it in person. I got the next best thing though. Layla, the nanny, texted me 2 videos of my sweet boy. I'm willing to share them with y'all, but only because I love y'all. ;)

CRAWLING!

How incredibly wonderful is that?!?!?! You may notice the black thing on his legs - that's called a hip helper. It basically keeps his hips aligned so they'll stay where they're supposed to be and not go out, frog leg style. This pair belongs to Ashley and I can confirm that Ryan can indeed crawl without the hip helpers!! Also, I don't know why these videos uploaded on only part of the screen but it may be because Layla has a different kind of phone. I can see them just fine on my phone though. :)

Not only did he crawl while I was out of town, Ashley got him to stand up on his own using his train table as support. She sent me a video on Friday, 12/4/15. I cannot get over it!

Since then, of course, we've been continuing to work with him and make sure he doesn't forget his newest and best skill - the crawling! It's crazy because it seems like Ryan will hit a mini-plateau without making any major improvements for a while and then BOOM - it hits and he starts doing lots of great stuff!

I'm so incredibly proud of my sweet baby Ryan! Ashley said that the crawling is such a great sign of things to come because it gives us hope that one day he'll be able to stand and walk on his own. I'm so thankful and glad that we have a great team of therapists to help him and teach him. They are all so supportive of him and of our whole family. It's such a great feeling to have that kind of support system. All thanks be to God for helping Ryan hit this milestone. This is an answered prayer for sure.