Why is Hadleigh in PT/OT?

I have been asked this question a lot lately and I thought I would answer it in one big post. But before I do that I wanted to show you how I started my morning.....

Poor Roc (or Sheriff Woody as he is recently going by)! He has a terrible cough and we had to start early this morning with a breathing treatment. He did a very good job! (Usually he fights us to do it but I think even he was tired of the cough after coughing all night!!)

Ok back to the Hads......I had a video perfectly prepared to show you and I cannot upload it. Grrrr! Anyways, on Monday, we had a great session with H's OT. She pointed out to me exactly what I should be looking for and gave me lots of great advice and exercises that we should be doing with Hadleigh. And if you are laughing to yourself, you should! It really is baby jazzercise!!! It is funny to watch and funny to do.

But when Hadleigh scoots on the floor, she pushes with her right foot and drags her left foot. Without the video, this is the best I can show you. See how she is pushing with her right foot and her left foot is doing nothing??

Again, she is pushing here with her right.

Also, when she gets herself from belly to the sitting position, she only uses her right side. She never pushes with the left side to get up. In the next two pictures, she is sitting with the right foot in front and the left foot in back. This is how she always does it.

Soooooo, OT explained that babies at this age should NOT have a dominant side. She knew that "some" people say babies do not have to crawl but she is against that way of thinking. To crawl, babies have to use their left and right side of their brains to move. Their arms and legs are moving in connection with each other to crawl on the floor. When a person walks, there is not that connection. You can walk without moving your arms and they do not cross over the body so both sides of the brain are not working at the same time.

She said Hadleigh has picked up this bad habit of only using her right side and it is not good. We want her using both sides of her body. She showed us all of these exercises where H is crossing her arms and legs across her body. She also wants us to "force" her in the all four position and rock her back and forth. I say force because Hadleigh really does fight back with this. She does not like this and will lay her head down on the floor to resist you. I asked the OT about this because I thought something might be wrong with her neck but she said that is a baby's natural defense of doing something she does not like. Isn't that interesting???

So I hoped I answered some of your questions, we have been busy doing baby exercises this week!!!

Finally, I never think I capture Hadleigh's smile in a picture. She always has her mouth open but I don't think it really shows her sweet smile. Well, I finally got it!!

Here is Hadleigh's full, gorgeous smile!!!