7 month old can't sit up on her own

[ktcl]

Should I be worried?  She can sit for periods of less than a minute, but then always falls over or rolls onto her side/belly.  DW and I have this hunch that it is related to gastro-intestinal discomfort (constipation, reflux), but no matter the cause, I'm starting to wonder if this is a problem.  Is this an early intervention kind of thing?

[beebalmmama]

No, not out of the range of normal. I don't think my little guy was sitting really well until around 7.5 months.

The reflux thing is something to think about. I was watching a little girl part time and she didn't sit until 8 months and then was still pretty wobbly. She had awful spit up and what I always thought was reflux but her mom didn't know. I'm not sure they ever really looked into it just saw it as her personality (fussy, irritable, crying a lot).  But around 7.5 - 8 months she was spitting up WAY less and wahlah!! happiest baby you've ever seen and sitting up and trying to move around. Complete opposite child compared to what I'd seen in her the previous five months.

Do you use anything to prop her up? I always found a boppy really handy for that, or a couple of pillows.

[mom2lucy]

My DD is almost 9 mo. and just now sitting alone reliably.  Like you I was very concerned and asked my ped about it and he said that he doesn't worry until a year old and to do nothing about it.

  This seemed a little odd to me so what I did (and I started this at 8 mo.) was to start doing exercises everyday to build her trunk strength.  I actually found these exercises online from people who've done early intervention.  Here's what I did:

"sit ups" after diaper changes (hold her hands and gently pull her up to a seated position-try not to do too much work so that your babe does most of it)

sitting her on the floor against the couch and either play with something very interesting (like a jack in the box) or give her little snacks (i used organic cheerios)

sit her on top of an exercise ball and hold onto her hips/legs and gently bounce and roll the ball around to get her muscles engaging to hold her up.  She loved this and always lughed when we did it.

Within a week I noticed a HUGE improvement in her sitting. 

Hope this helps, I know how stressful it can be when you think they should be doing something and they're not.

Good luck!!

[GoBecGo]

My now-4.5yo was nearly 10months before she could sit well.  I was too naiive to be worried! LOL.

It was a shock to me when DD2 could sit at 7months!

[PatioGardener]

my ds crawled before he could sit by himself. 7.5 months for crawling and 8 months for sitting. now at 9.5 months he is standing and cruising on furniture!

[bdoody11]

DD#1 couldn't sit on her own reliably until 9 months, but crawled at 7 months. She is now a very energetic, healthy 4 year old.

Like the PP, DD#2 also surprised me by sitting at 7 months and show no signs of crawling. Yay!