What Can You Do to Help Your Child with Down syndrome Walk

What can you do to help your child with Down Syndrome walk?

Children with Down syndrome typically walk later than their typical peers. Though this is true, there are some children with Down syndrome who seem to have no delays in their gross motor skills and yet others who, like my Cedar, seem to be in no rush to cruise or walk solo. What is a mom to do and what can you do to help your child with Down Syndrome walk?

Make sure you have a good therapist

First and foremost make sure you have a good physical therapist who works well with your child and with your family. Know that sometimes just because someone happens to hold a degree does not necessarily make them a good fit for your child, so trust your gut. Ask your child’s physical therapist to show you exercises you can do with your child on the days you are not in therapy. If you are only getting statewide free therapy through an early intervention program and you feel your child needs more, simply start asking around and seek out services. I have found that being an advocate for your child is absolutely a requirement when your child has special needs.

2. Set up a therapy schedule.

I don’t mean the days that you go to therapy but the days where you intentionally spend time outside of therapy working with your child at home. Incorporate therapy into play when possible and always make it fun. Scour the internet for ideas and do things like have your child pull to stand and utilize push toys to help them get moving.

3. Ask about orthotics

This is one that you may have to push for if your therapist is a little lax about recommending orthotics. It seems as though most children with hypotonia (which is common with Down syndrome) benefit greatly from being fitted for orthotics be it AFO’s or SMO’s. If you notice that your child’s ankles turn in or out when bearing weight on feet, your child locks his or her knees trying to keep balance or your child rocks back on heels while trying to bear weight, your child may benefit from orthotics. We have seen a great improvement in Cedar’s ability to stand for extended periods of time and his cruising when he is wearing his AFOs that we got from Surestep.

Related Post: What are AFO’s and SMO’s?

4. Keep working at it

Though it seems like sometimes all your hard work is in vain, sometimes our little ones surprise us out of the blue by doing something unexpected that we have been encouraging them to do and then one day…they just do it. Tune in to your child, see what motivates them. For us, once we finally got Cedar some AFO’s (ankle foot orthotics) we saw marked improvement in his endurance and desire to move. We also found the EUREKA moment that we could entice him to cruise around our coffee table if he was chasing after mom’s cell phone or some popcorn (hey, whatever works, right?)

5. Don’t beat yourself up

Just because you see another child who has Down Syndrome walking at 12 months doesn’t mean there is anything bad if yours is 24 months and still not walking. Unless there is some other underlying medical condtion besides Down Syndrome, I have yet to see a child with Down Syndrome not eventually walk, yours will too.