baby wearing = delayed milestones?

[clare076]

Can baby wearing cause a delay in babies reaching milestones, for example rolling over?
Samuel was a very (and I stress very!) unsettled baby for the first 3 and a half months of his life, to the extent where I could not put him down. I have literally held that child since the day he was born - noon and night.
It hasonly been in the past 2 weeks that he has been on the floor for any length of time and now its almost like he doesn't know what he is supposed to do down there.
Can the fact that I "wore" him for 14 weeks slow him down on reaching milestones or does it not matter?

[nelly]

clare I wouldn't think so - although I have no professional knowledge - Jake was a very bad reflux baby and never did tummy time until he chose to once he started sitting up. Even then after a few minutes on his tummy he would scream the house down. As for his milestones his head raising ones were way behind initially but he was walking his trolley around at 9 months and now is fine. In my opinion they adapt to the situation. HTH to put your mind at ease.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I wear DS still.

Head raising pretty much from birth
Rolling over 8w
Sitting up 5m-ish
Walking holding on 6.5m
Cruising 8.5m
Walking unaided 9m (although he's still wobbly and prefers cruising).

He also has six words now (daddy, mummy, hi, hug, yes and no) and understands a lot more.

DS also hasn't crawled at all, he went straight for walking. To encourage crawling you can gently play opposites with his limbs (bring his right foot and left hand together a few times, then left foot and right hand), but tbh babies will do what they do when they do it, not when we want them to. DS will try to walk in the carrier, which can get a bit painful, or climb up over my shoulder if I'm holding him. It really hasn't delayed him at all.

[fionas]

Logically, I would think if you wore your baby constantly for five months and they were 'meant' (I use that term loosely) to roll at four then the fact that they don't have the opportunity to roll means they aren't going to do it until they stop being worn IYKWIM. Clare, I know this example is different to your timelines but hope that makes sense.

Will this matter? I wouldn't think so. I think they catch up and do things when they're ready. A baby that is worn because he or she doesn't like being on the floor is not going to roll anyway are they, worn or not?

My baby always HATED tummy time so I ignored the by-the-book MCHN who told us that we should give our babies 3 x 20 minutes of tummy time each day. Absolutely pointless trying to do that if she didn't like it and cried. What's that teaching her? So I just let her be and hey presto she went from hating tummy time to literally overnight being the rolliest polliest baby around. With, I should add, the proudest look on her face. I just tell people she doesn't bother doing something until she's mastered it!

So don't worry - I think by all means keep trying to give your son time on the floor but if he's not liking it, just wait until he does. He'll get the idea.

[~Raven~]

I never really wore Mason much at all and he was last to do everything. I wore Caleb the most and he was the first to roll & walk.

[krysalyss]

I haven't seen any research but my common sense says that if you wear them all of the time and they want to get down and roll around etc. then you will be delaying their potential development.
If you leave them down despite the fact that they want to be carried by you all of the time then they will hate being left and down on the ground so again you will be delaying their development.

Also remember that development is not just physical. Brain development is huge in the first year and is very much parent guided. If you force them into separation from you so they can be on the ground when they really really don't want to be then again their are likely to be negative impacts.

So I think you need to be guided by them. If they need to be carried around a lot then do it. If they want to get down then let them. They will then have confidence that you can provide the emotional support that they need, and develop the physical milestones in their own time.

I HTH.