doper parents---baby arching back

In My Humble Opinion
1

My 8 1/2 month baby does a strange back-arching thing. She’ll be in her highchair or exersaucer and arch her back to the point of touching the back of the seat with her head and kind of hold her breath or pant a little. I asked the pediatrician about this a couple of months back, and she said not to worry about it unless she is turning blue, but we’re still a little freaked out by this, especially because my SO’s mother keeps wondering aloud if this is a sign of epilepsy. We also thought maybe it just meant that she doesn’t want to be in that particular location, but as I said, she’ll do it in her high chair during a feeding but get seriously aggrieved if the feeding stops and we take her out.

Sorry if my explanation is unclear, but I’m hoping someone will recognize this type of behavior and advise me.

2

It doesn’t strike me as being something to fret over. I’ve seen babies do this in all sorts of situations. My unprofessional guess would be that it’s an expression of frustration, an attempt to move, a stretching posture, or just something the kid likes to do. I know kids who do this to escape from a person who’s holding them. Just a kid thing. Speculation about epilepsy seems a wee bit extreme.

3

Thanks, FairyChatMom. I did want to add that my SO’s Mom is definitely one to give other people’s kids fairly extreme diagnoses. Occupational hazard of being a school administrator for special needs kids, I guess.

4

With what you have shared, it sounds in the normal range. Read up on epilepsy on the web if you want to look for symptoms, but this sounds like a baby just flexing.

My daughter will sometimes tense her he whole body rigidly to the point where she practically vibrates in place. Sometimes she does this to punctuate a tantrum - very freaky when accompanied by bug-eyed, red-faced screaming and ranting, eh? - and sometimes just because she thinks it is funny. Kids are nutty and are exploring what their bodies can do…

5

My unofficial statement of truth is that it is completely normal. I have seen both my neice and nephew do this innumerable times. Sometimes whilst laying on the floor, sometimes in their high chairs - they are twins - sometimes to get out of being held like FCM said…

It’s most likely completely normal. I’m in my thirties and love it when lay on the floor and stretch as far as I can arching my back :slight_smile:

6

You’re welcome, lorene. My MIL is a big one on expecting the worst out of any situation. She worries and frets and nags till those around her are going crazy, so I kinda know what you’re dealing with. I do believe that in most cases, parents are pretty good about noticing things that are “not quite right” about their own kids. Ya gotta figure that those millions of years that we birthed and reared offspring without benefit of books and magazine articles have to say something for instincts.

Chances are, if it seems OK to you, it’s probably OK. And unless someone has a compelling reason to make you question your judgement, I think you should trust yourself. Just one Mom’s opinion…

7

I call it the kamakazi escape move. If they weren’t being restrained by furniture or arms, they’d fly over and smash their heads on the floor. Nothing to worry about. But don’t let go when they do it!

8

First off, anything your MIL or anyone else for that matter, says that instantly sends you over the edge into DEFCON 5 kinda panic: Ignore.

These people are well meaning, good hearted, but put on this planet to make you worry and fret over every sniffle that will end up being SARS or Menningitis or Retardation.

These people outnumber you. By a 1000-1 ratio. They will lead you to beleive that you are the most incompetant mother to ever have spawned. Their advice or predictions are well meant, however, you know that Protective Services are hovering in your bushes waiting for you to flub up some how and take your precious little one away because you are clearly incompetant.

The fact that you are a Doper is proof of your higher intelligence, but honey, you are still surrounded by well meaning maroons.

Get use to it.

Every parent has been there before. *Every one of them * You are not alone. You are exhausted and unable to think clearly.

Don’t worry, you will never get enough sleep again, but you will learn how to function on less. I promise you. Some days you might even be coherent, but it will fall on a Sunday and no one else is around but the dog.

By the second or third child, your outer skin will be as tough as leather and you won’t be so vunerable and the advice doesn’t come in gushes anymore, it is more along the way of long baleful looks from the well meaning maroons and tsk tsk’s. And when your kids hit that charming period of 2 thru 4, well, nothing you do will be right because either you are clearly spoiling your temper tantrum prone child or not beating her enough.

Welcome to the Zone of Confliction.
Your little one is probably frustrated with the containment. Baby’s are movers. Shakers. They got places to go, man. Things to see, babe. This food stuff, BAH!

Eight months is a turning point for babies. This is when their Manipulation Gene begins. It’s loads of fun to watch…on other people’s children. With your own…we’ll…good luck.

How about tying up some favorite toys on strings and taping them to the high chair so that she can toss them off and pull them back up again.

Give a fist full of cheerios to have her play with and gum.

Or a nice plasma screen TV might cure what ails her. :smiley:

9

There are also a bunch of other things that are kicking in right now.

  1. At 8-8.5 months after the due date (not birth, but due), babies learn to ‘make categories’ (conceptually). This is a huge leap in mental development, and it messes with their behavior, including around food. See the book “The Wonder Weeks” (orthis link) for more about those stages.

  2. The Opinion Gene starts to kick in, too. They start to know what they do and do not like in a more fine-tuned way, and will let you know, but don’t yet know how to let you know effectively. So the back arching, which is a pretty basic frustrated distress response (less than screaming, just ‘Hey!’), starts kicking up more.

When both my kids did this (and they both did), I took it as a cue for mommy to turn into communication central. Ask questions - they may respond (“Are you all done?” “Do you want down?”). This preps them for the whole communication-is-two-way concept. Also, go ahead and explain, too: “You need to stay in your seat while you eat, just like we do. When you are done eating, you can go run around.” Some kids don’t ‘get’ that much talking, so you can also try: “Not safe! Bottom down. Sit to eat, please.”

Look for native signs (their own sign language) in reply, or consider teaching ‘baby signs’ to help them communicate back. Brendan has a good dozen signs and nearly-comical facial expressions (intentionally used) that he uses to communicate back to me: Hands raised for ‘up’, scowl for ‘don’t like/don’t tell me what to do’, hands extended and turning outward with a cute head tilt and shoulder lift for ‘please’, leaning-forward squat (like a football player) for ‘lets’ play’, arms out/hands up shrug for ‘all gone/don’t know’, hand open palm up and finger curls for ‘come here’, hand sideways/finger flicks for ‘take it away’, hand wave palm down (like pushing) for ‘go away’, angry face for ‘no’, extreme face scrunch (smiley) for ‘I like that’, stern finger point for ‘don’t do that’, hand flap (like you burned yourself) for ‘hot’, hands to head and pat for ‘dangerous/head bonk’, and so forth. Most of these he just used once or twice in a situation, and I responded as if they were stable terms, he grasped that they were useful, and repeated them. Now they’re his signs. Very useful, and really reduces their frustration level. :slight_smile: I generally use a sign, voice (word plus tone), and facial cue together to help them ‘get’ a meaningful term like ‘hot’.

So, yeah, the back arch is normal. She’s frustrated, is my bet - maybe she wants the food faster, slower, warmer, colder, wants to sit at the table, wants a different spoon, wants a different food (like what you’re eating), or even wants to listen to something different, wear something different, etc. - but she cannot tell you, and it drives her nuts. But if you try to end the eating, that’s wrong, so she gets mad. Keep trying different things, and see if you can pinpoint what is bugging her - it may even be the seat is sticky, or warm, or uncomfortable. But don’t get upset if you can’t figure it out - it could be so many things that you can’t cover them all. Worth a shot to try to check the easy/obvious ones, though.

Eventually, they progress to using the back arch for entertainment. Brendan (now 19 months) still loves to sit on my lap and throw himself backwards in an arc. I hold onto his shoulders, and let him flip completely over, until he is standing on his feet on the floor in front of me. He thinks it is funny. In the meantime, listen to the wise women who say ‘ignore the nits!’ and don’t let yourself feel unworthy to be the mom. You are the mom. And normal moms are optimal for babies - you don’t even have to be perfect. (Thankfully, since I certainly am not!)

10

Good friends of mine take their seven month old to the chiropractor to prepare him for standing and walking, and he said the back arching/escape move is a way of the infant uncurling their spine, and straightening it into the proper arch, to get reading for standing up!

11

Why are they taking him to the chiropractor? I’m curious as to what this is supposed to accomplish for the baby, since most babies stand and walk quite well on their own.

As for babies arching backwards, Aaron does this all the time. He doesn’t particularly like sitting in one place for very long, and does this to stretch out. Also, he likes to see things from different angles and perspectives. YMMV, of course.

Robin

12

Birth is kind of traumatic for some kids, spine-wise. If they aren’t lined up well, forceps used, etc, it can really twist them around. And then there is all that sleeping on backs with a heavy head turned to the side, or sleeping in car seats with the neckless look (when you think there must be a neck troll somewhere who takes their necks away when they sleep).

We took Gabe to the chiro when he was about 4 1/2 yrs, I think. He had never slept well, from birth, had always snored (from birth), was often congested, had circles under his eyes constantly, and was showing signs of apnea. Before doing allergy testing (which has the same symptoms), we decided to take a friend’s advice and try chiropractic. I saw the x-ray. OUCH! His neck was curved sideways, in quite an arc. Nothing like a few days of labor in the wrong position to put a kink in your neck… Granted, we don’t know for certain that it was there from birth, but as soon as his neck was even mostly straightened out (about two weeks), all those from-birth symptoms went away. (The snoring went away nearly immediately, he stopped waking up at night except to pee, circles went away under his eyes, etc…)

We had Brendan checked out, too. He was in far better shape (lined up right in labor, and short labor, too), but had an uneven head turn because of sleeping more on one side of me than the other (always turning one way to nurse). And the adjustments corrected it instantly each time, until he developed enough muscle balance to keep from pulling himself out of line all the time. If you held him upside down, before an appointment, his head wouldn’t hang straight down, but off at an angle to one side. After, it hung down straight (my kids liked being upside down).

They also fall a lot as they get older.

Oh, and the back arch is a native behavior, it is the same move they do to help them be born - they push like that with every contraction, which helps dilation, and gets their heads lined up right. Assuming they’re close enough in the first place to line up when they do…

13

Um, that was to explain why one might take a kid to a chiro at that age.

Pre-walking getting straightened out IF they aren’t straight already, makes sense to me. But with a good birth, they usually are in pretty decent shape. And PT will usually resolve the same issues - it is just hard sometimes to get them to cooperate with the exercises.

14

Wow, everyone has been so helpful! Thanks so much.

The little one really didn’t have a great birth—got kinda stuck with one shoulder further forward than the other for a few hours. Maybe there is a straightening issue, but I really do think this is probably separate. (I just thought of that b/c of Hedra’s explanation—my baby constantly has dark circles under her eyes)

Also like the suggestion to ignore the myriad opinions that others feel free to throw my way. The SO and I both work for agencies which contract with Social Services, so they really won’t have to look very far for us once word gets out about what incompetants we are :slight_smile:

15

I’ve got no kids, but I’ve got a huge extended family of cousins and friends ranging in age from 27 (me) to 10 months (dear friends’ little girl) that I’ve either baby sat, or were like younger sibs, heck, I watched BJ so much he started calling me Mom!

Anyway, almost every one of the multitude did the back arch thing, for multiple reasons - escape (a bad one, more cousins ended up on thier soft little heads, sigh), to see better, just to stretch.

The 10 month old doesn’t do this. Instead, she entertains herself by beating her head against the hardwood floor and giggling like a nutbar. It’s cute and weird all a once.

16

When my kids did this a looooong time ago it was usually because they were uncomfortable, wanted to get out, didnt like the food or was just moody. They even did it when I was carrying them (not the boy to much but the girl was a squirmer) So i had a little trick to discourage them from doing that.

I tickle their stomachs. They generally take this as a game and forget all about what they were fussy about to begin with. If they persist even thru the game, I take them out of the chair and let them go do what they want on the floor. When they do this, a little extra attention works wonders.

17

My son (7 1/2 months) does a similar thing when he’s in his car seat. He’ll arch his back and fight to get out as I’m unbuckling him - and if you’re not careful, he’ll arch so severely that he plops right out of it. He does this going in and getting out of his car seat, in/out of the high chair, being held in a position he doesn’t like… it’s his way of saying “I don’t like this, let me out/down.”

18

The circles thing can be allergies (commonly called allergy eyes), including food allergies or from inhaled stuff (dust, etc.). But basically they show up because of sleep issues - kids with allergies don’t sleep as well, even if they don’t wake a lot. Allergic apnea, I think is where it falls, diagnostically (breathing obstruction wakes them slightly). But there are multiple other causes of the circles, including other forms of apnea, and just plain never being able to get comfortable (Gabe’s problem). Poor kid thought it was normal, and didn’t know better.

If you want to get it checked out, make sure you find someone who is a reputable (certified) pediatric chiropractor or family chiropractor with more than a bit of pediatric training. Working on babies takes a special touch. (Oh, and they don’t x-ray infants, usually, unless there was a traumatic injury like a car crash.)

19

Heh.

My friend’s son did this a lot. He’d also do it on the floor, when he was lying flat, so he’d end up doing a backbend. It was very funny to see, but, as everyone else has said, quite normal.