Little E’s One Year Check

I promised myself when Little E arrived that I wouldn’t stress over her milestones. I wanted to enjoy her and not watch her every movement in the first year. I convinced myself that I was doing well but I knew I was watching for signs.

When she stopped using her hands for finger foods and putting things in her mouth at around 8 months my heart filled with dread. This was one of Ethan’s missed red flags and I thought here we go again.

I decided that I would point it out to the health visitors and I requested Little E’s one year check be done as early as possible. After my experience of the health visitors missing all of Ethan’s red flags at his one year check I was wary, but I knew that the earlier Little E was in the system the better it was for her.

Little E’s one year check was booked in for when she would be 10 months old. Due to some cancellations it didn’t actually happen until she was 11 months old.

Thankfully during this wait Little E decided that she liked finger foods again and anything and everything was going into her mouth!

When we had her one year check it was such a different experience from Ethan’s in and out five-minute appointment. Firstly there is a more detailed questionnaire sent to you before the appointment, an ASQ-3 – Ages & Stages Questionnaires. I actually found this quite hard to answer, mostly because I was wary on how I should answer the questions. I didn’t want to tell the health visitor that Little E could do something if she couldn’t.

Our health visitor stayed for nearly two hours going over every question with me and watching to see if Little E could do what it asked. I’m not sure if we had this amount of time because of Ethan but I was very grateful about the detail and time the health visitor was taking.

I’m pleased to report that Little E passed her one year check. I have requested that we be seen again at around 18 months as this is the time that regression could occur.

I must admit that we are still watching for traits, and waiting for Little E to reach some very important milestone markers but I am more relaxed about it all.

As the health visitor said we will never totally relax until Little E is 3 maybe even 4 but what will be will be.