independent sitting for a baby with Down syndrome

I was thinking about this lately, and I realized that Kamdyn has only been sitting up independently for 4 months.  I can't even believe that, because it feels like so much longer.  We worked so hard to help her reach this goal that it felt like she may never do it.  But I can assure anyone who is in that position, that they will get it.  One day the pieces will start to fall together and each day, you will see improvement.  I wanted to put a few things that we did.  They are not magic fixes or an instant fix-all, but they help build strength and encourage the position of sitting up.

It all started with tummy time and getting her to hold her head up with control.

Once she had head control, we were able to focus on independent sitting.  To help build strength, we did sit ups with Kamdyn.  I would hold her hands, and when she would lean up and start pulling with her arms, I would gently pull her forward.  In just doing this motion, she would tighten her abdominal muscles.  For leaning her back, we had to place a pillow behind her so that she had a soft landing spot.  I will warn, however, that you have to be careful when doing these, because you don't want to pull on their arms.  Since babies with Down syndrome have lower muscle tone and loose ligaments, you don't want to do this unless they are going to use resistance and pull back away from you.  I actually had to wait until Kamdyn was at a point where she wanted to sit up, so she would pull back.

We also encouraged her to play with her feet.

To get her interested in playing with her feet, I painted her toe nails red to encourage her to grab them.  I think it worked, and it was cute : )


To encourage the position of sitting up, we would sit her in front of us, with her facing the same direction so that we could only see her back.  Then, we wrapped a boppy billow around her stomach with the opening to the back and held onto the side of the boppy pillow.  The boppy pillow was used to offer support, and she was free to use her hands to play with a toy in front of her.  Many times, we used our other children to play with a toy to keep her interested and her head up.

In the same position, with her facing the same direction so that we could only see her back, we held both of her shoulders to keep her body upright and erect.  Then, someone else would play with a toy in front of her to keep her head up and interested.  As she got better, we moved our hands down to supporting her from under the arm pits.  Then, we moved down to supporting from the stomach,

You can see the stomach supporting here.

and finally, we were able to only offer support from the hips.

Once she only needed support from the hips, it made doing ball exercises much easier.  She could sit on an exercise ball, while we held her hips and moved the ball back and forth while she had to correct her own body and support herself.  This was a great help in building strength.  We did the ball exercises while she was in each phase, but I feel like this is where it was the most successful.

I would put her the exersaucer with blankets wrapped around her for support.

She only stayed in for short spurts, though.

During this time, we also utilized kineseo taping that our OT was specifically trained to do.  Kineseo taping uses a sticky bandage that resembles and feels like ace bandage to place across the stomach and back to stimulate the muscles.  It only stays on for a couple of days.  Kamdyn was taped on a Monday, and by Wednesday, it was ready to come off.  She would get a break from it for a few days, and she would be taped again the following Monday.  After the first taping, I noticed a significant improvement in her strength.  For the following weeks, it was not as noticeable, but I do believe it helped.  My only warning would be not to pull off the tape until it is falling off on it's own.  If you try to pull it off when it is not ready, it can irritate the skin, which we found out one time when the weather was very dry and the tape was holding strong for almost a week.  If you are ready for it to come off, and it is still holding strong, you can let your little one soak in the tub for a while to help loosen it.

At this point, Kamdyn also started doing more tripod sitting.  She was not strictly tripod sitting, because we were still doing supported sitting as described above, but we wanted to encourage her to work to sit on her own.  She started out only being able to support with her hands for a matter of seconds before she would lose the position.

This is what the crash looked like.

Don't worry, she was on the bed ; )  It was a soft landing.


We kept working, and she was able to sit longer, but her body was still leaning forward, and she could not hold it for more than a minute.

And finally, we had an independent sitter. The following picture was taken about 2 weeks after the one above.

She was able to sit independently without using her hands to hold her up at right around 10 months.

You can see her hands on her thighs here.

Even now, months later, if she loses her balance, she will return to the position with her hands on her thighs for support.

Kamdyn has also been more comfortable sitting with her legs straight out, rather than bent.

She holds her legs in a "V" position.

Now, at 14 months, she is pulling her legs up and bending her knees while she is sitting, because she feels more secure and confident.

So there you have it.  That was our journey with independent sitting.  I wanted to post it in case it could ever help anyone else, but I also wanted to remember it for me.  This milestone was something that we worked on, and I thought about a lot.  I remember seeing other's brag on their little one who was sitting at 7 or 8 months, and I wondered if I was doing something wrong.  Now I know that Kamdyn will do things in her own time.  About a month after she was independently sitting, she began army crawling.

Now, at 14 months, we are working on crawling on hands and knees and pulling to stand.