Stanley is just about to turn three he loves water, swimming and is full of energy. He has started really showing an interest in toys and loves anything that spins or flashes. He adores the beach and being outside. He is very smiley and has a wonderful sense of humour, he has two older sisters and lives on a farm with his family in the UK.
Stanley was born with complex club feet. He spent the first year of his life going to weekly hospital appointments to have his feet corrected. He now has to wear different types of splints both day and night. He also had a Lycra suit to help with his posture and muscle tone.
Stanley is small for his age and we have problems with feeding. His speech is delayed but he has been working really hard with his speech and language therapist he has learnt approximately 30 new words in the last 3 months which is wonderful as he can now tell us things like more, bed, bath, cuddle, downstairs and outside.
His physical development is very delayed. He has very low tone, Stanley can now sit up unaided and roll across the floor as quickly as a toddler can crawl but he is unable to manage this himself currently. He cannot pull up or walk but does have a walker to try or encourage independent steps.
Stanley also struggles with his fine motor skills. Holding a spoon, picking up small toys and posting objects. He has wonderful determination and works hard in all his therapies so we do see a big improvement although this can take lots of time.
We have a wonderful family who adore Stanley’s cheeky sense of humour and my older girls are like second mums too him he is very affectionate and loves to be cuddled by them.
For us Stanley’s diagnosis was a relief. For over 2 years we knew something wasn’t quite right and felt like we had to prove that we needed support for Stanley. Now we feel we can plan our future and push to get him the support he deserves. We hope that we can gain more understanding as more research is conducted and have found the virtual community of talking to other parents that understand hugely beneficial.
