Motor Development Program at 10 months

For the most part, we have been trying to follow the physical program outlined in "How Smart Is Your Baby" by Doman. Arden is currently working on Stage IV. 

Mobility Program:

I mentioned in a recent post that one part of this is gaining the ability to walk 40 feet nonstop. Arden is still working on that. She will walk about 10 feet or so before something on the ground catches her interest and she will sit down, or she will simply lose interest in the walking and sit down. Because it is so wet where we live she does not have may outdoor walking opportunities and inside of course we do not have a 40 foot open area for her to walk, so for the most part she walks across her main play area many times a day, but has not really increased the distance per a single walking episode. 

The second part of the mobility program is balance exercises. I have to say that we do not do these as a rigorous program, but we do most of them on a regular basis as just part of playing and while she is being held/carried.

Manual Program:

For cortical opposition we mainly focus on using small pieces of food. She has been picking up and eating Cheerios and yogurt melts since 6 months. We also give her things like small pieces of cubed fruit or meat. This is a great activity for her to work on while I am doing dishes or preparing food. It keeps her happy and occupied, and still in sight.

The second part of the manual program is brachiation/manual competence. Quite honestly, she is crazy about using the pull up bar. I bought a pull-up bar on Amazon that we could hang in the door, but is also easily removable so it doesn't need to always be up. It has worked great. When we have it up she will reach out and say "ah, ah, ah!!" whenever we walk past it in the hallway. I will then usually give her an opportunity to hang and that will prompt my older boys to beg for turns to try pull ups. Of course, when she sees her older brothers on it she wants another turn as well. She easily hangs for 30 seconds and then we lift her down. Here she is at 9 months, showing off her skills:

 

At this point she is ready to begin using a brachation ladder (monkey bars), but unfortunately we haven't been able to put any up yet. 

It's hard to believe, but she's about ready to graduate from the motor portion of "How Smart is Your Baby?" book into the "How to Teach Your Baby To Be Physically Superb" which goes up to age 6.