Aurora will be 11 months old next week and does not clap ..... She does wave bye bye ( as soon as she hears the words bye bye) she points, plays peek a boo,responds to her name and in every other milestone she is right on track and a little ahead on others. She says mama to the appropriate person consistently and has even taken a few steps on her own already .... I have called the pediatrician and he was not concerned ,... I am sure this is due to the fact that we played games like peek a boo instead of clapping games while she is younger. I just wanted to get a feel for other moms opinions , concerns and ideas Now we clap all the time she probably does not want to do it purely for my amusement! Lol
Thank you so much moms. I love all the ideas to encourage clapping. And thanks for the comfort hearing your opinions has really helped .... my oldest is 9 and putting that much if a gap between them pretty much made me a new mom again. Lol. I live this site. :). Update: Aurora actually starters clapping once she started walking, all the excitement from everyone and their clapping, 11 . 5 months ;)
Please do not spend one more minute worrying about this. :)
Kids do what they do when they are interested in doing it.
Aw, don't worry! It sounds like she's doing really well and meeting ALL of her milestones, and then some. It sounds like she's doing great. Don't get into comparing her to "other" kids. Pediatrician isn't concerned? She's doing all of these other things? No worries!
Firstly, I loved the name Aurora! :)
Second, I'm hardly any professional, but she seems to be doing like a champ for 11 mos! :) Don't worry...
No worries!
Milestones have a HUGE range for 'normal' (some even 1-2 years of range), just because they do things in different orders and skip around. Most babies are early, dead on, and 'late' depending on the milestone. Almost none are always early, or on time, or late.
Clapping is large motor. So either she's working on a large motor that's more fun/interesting, or she's doing fine motor, or cognitive, or emotional, or audiocortex, or visual cortex, or sensory, or or or.
Kids leapfrog around (no one gave them the checklist), so there will be a bunch of stuff shell start, drop, regress, start, stop, bouncing and bouncing and bouncing around. :D
When did my son clap? No idea!!! A lot of his gross motor was delayed because he was sooooo big and such a fast grower... But not delayed enough to be concerning.
I'm not certain you need to care whether or not she's clapping at this juncture, maybe the sound bugs her right now. Trust me, she will clap when she's ready. I don't consider learning to clap as any type of milestone for development, don't stress on it.
She sounds like a perfectly healthy 11 month old. Especially as they get older, little ones aren't always going to learn specific skills at exactly the same time as other kids do. The fact that she is meeting her other milestones and is ahead on others shows that she is developing necessary motor and cognitive skills at an appropriate time. That's why your pediatrician isn't concerned. Clapping isn't out of her range of abilities; it's just not one of her interests right now. But give it some time, and I'm sure she'll be clapping along with you without hesitation.
She should be just fine and clapping in no time. For some kids learning simple tasks is difficult, but everything else seems great.
I'm sure an occupational therapist will be better able to explain this, but clapping is actually a complicated skill. Babies can do things on the right side and the left side pretty early. But meeting or crossing the midline of the body takes more time and maturity. At 11 months old, your daughter is perfectly fine if she can't clap yet. Don't worry!
Just for the record, our daughter did not clap until 11 months - and the first time was at her first Red Sox game, when 40,000 other fans began clapping. Apparently that's all it took! :)
It's my guess that clapping simply doesn't really appeal to her.
My daughter, at that age, was much more fascintated with learning how to snap her fingers. She was "flicking" her fingers all the time.
I think if you listen to music and clap along she will try to follow you. My one year old grandson loves to clap every time he thinks he's done something awesome, like taking bites of breakfast.
She'll get the hang of it. As long as she's learning and meeting her other milestones, I wouldn't worry too much.
Best wishes!
relax! She's hitting the other benchmarks....so just wait & see.
Oh, & have you tried the "If You're Happy & You Know It" song? That might encourage her clapping.
Another trick of the trade: place a piece of paper on one hand, & have her try to smash it with the other hand. Kids love games of destruction!
Son is 15 mo.
14mo - he clapped.
1 week ago he kindof does the "roll 'em up" part of Patty Cake
Does NOT wave bye-bye
We're first time parents, so your question seems like you're one of "us". We try to keep in mind that first timers don't know what's happening, and tend to worry about things that parents of multiples don't worry about.
We often ask ourselves, would a parent of 3 be concerned that Jr. isn't clapping? (insert whatever action).
did she or does she crawl? This is another skill that involves coordinating both left and right .... If she crawled on schedule than she is capable of coordinating both sides.
My first (the one I was paying attention with) did not clap till around 11 or 12 months.
