Saturday, November 21, 2009

Strange Behavior

Over the past week or so, this has become one of Finn's favorite pasttimes:



Rocking on all fours, and humming as he rocks. He does it for long stretches of time, several times a day. The first time I noticed, he spent the better part of the morning doing this. The strange thing is that the kid can crawl - he's been crawling for months and easily navigates the entire house, but this is almost like pre-crawling behavior.

He does it in his crib, too, before he falls asleep, and upon waking. Last night in the middle of the night, Michael and I were awakened by a rhythmic knocking sound that seemed to be coming from Finn's room (which shares a wall with our room). Michael got up to check on him and found him up on all fours, rocking, in his crib, in his sleep! The knocking sound was his head knocking against the changing table attached to his crib.

Not sure what to make of this. I mean, it's not hurting anything . . . but weird.


8 comments:

Kathleen said...

Hi Lisa, I'm a regular reader but haven't made a comment yet. This sounds like it could be "Stimming" behavior. Like you've said, labels can be helpful and also...not so helpful. Maybe Finn is stimming, maybe not, but this link might be helpful?

http://www.myspecialsweetpea.com/stimming.html

Michelle said...

Ruby used to stim a lot when she was teething or if she was getting sick. Some kids do it just because they like to - like a self-soother.

Catherine Just said...

HE IS SO DARN CUTE !

yes - it just looks like self soothing behavior. He's rocking himself.
My guy likes to sit straight up while sleeping and then falls full steam ahead onto whatever is around him - mostly that would be my face. Fun thing to wake up to!

Sasha@ Blyssfulhealth said...

Wysdom used to hit himself in a rythmic way. I found he did this when he was in pain or bored. He also does a humming sound(real loud) to go to sleep. I would say self soothing too. Funny enough it slowed down or stopped once his ng was taken out. Wondering if he does the rocking thing when he is tired or all the time?. Maybe give him something else when he is tired to focus on. I have no idea what that would be though. We used to try to give Wysdom a toy when he did the hitting to distract him

Molly said...

ummmm so thanks Lisa, for like quadrupling my desire for kids with that insane cuteness. Seriously. That face. AHHHH. so cute. Can I just borrow him for a few days?

seems like it is sensory related. like he likes the input on his hip joints or legs or something. I actually often bounce in a similar manor when I'm reading or laying in bed. I don't realize I'mdoing it, but i just sort of have to be in motion. I know kids with DS can have lose joints right? So it seems like a sensory thing to me. It also looks like fun and now I kind of wnat to try it.


argh. HES SO CUTE!

The Sanchez Family said...

OH my! He is darn cute! Looks like he's just experimenting with his voice a bit and the rocking just for sensory input :)! Very cute!

Anna Alexandrova said...

I love Finn!

Lisa said...

First, totally cute.

Second, it sounds like he might be experimenting and playing with his voice. And the rocking is likely giving him really good sensory feedback (maybe he really likes the proprioceptive feedback he gets from that motion) and maybe put it all together and it's super soothing to him?