What to do if my child is slow to learn to walk
If you think your baby should be walking by now but hasn’t started yet, follow these tips – sometimes it’s just a matter of time.
The concerns you have as a mother and as a father are incredible from the moment we know that our child is going to enter the world. We start to worry about her growth in the fetus, then we start worrying about the delivery, about what this life will bring, about whether or not she will eat enough, about whether we are doing the right thing … All are worries! Although, yes, with a goal satisfactory enough to be worth it. Watching them grow up healthy, strong and happy is the greatest achievement a parent could aspire to.
There are facts that tend to have parents more concerned than anything else, especially when their children are slow to learn something . In this case, we are going to talk about one of the most common concerns: when little ones take too long to learn to walk , and their parents already begin to suspect a possible delay in growth. It not only happens with walking, but also with talking, eating alone, going to the bathroom … It is as if we believe that children have a kind of clock, and at twelve months they will begin to walk alone, at one year and They will know how to eat at their own pace … And nothing is further from the truth!
The first thing you should be very clear about if you are concerned about your child’s delay in learning to walk is that each child has their own rhythm, and this is not a bad thing . There are children who learn to walk when they are ten or eleven months old, while there are others who do not begin to take their first steps until they are fifteen; However, it can also be the case that they end up being delayed until nineteen months, and as long as there is no type of motor problem, it is not a bad thing in itself.
Index
CHILDREN ARE NOT ROBOTS
Before the child begins to walk directly, there must be a kind of phases . Not all babies have to go through the same phases, but they are the ones that usually occur in a generalized way. At seven or eight months, the baby will begin to sit up by itself and will begin to move by dragging its bottom, in the most precarious way possible; During the nine months or so, he will be able to start crawling, although not all of them do. At about ten months the child is expected to take his first steps , and around a year he will have enough strength to walk on his own, with little stability, yes.
But then why are there children who take longer, or children who don’t even crawl? It depends a lot on each baby, their environment and their body in general . That a child takes longer does not imply that he has any type of delay, but that it is taking a little longer, without this having to directly affect his future growth. Learning to walk is something that, unless you have a motor problem, you will end up doing. If that is the case with your child, if you see that he has additional problems in addition to not learning to walk, you should take him to the doctor for an exam; But if you do not see motor problems, if the child crawls , moves, feels active, there is no reason to pressure him.
Whether he walks sooner or later also depends on his genetics, if he was born premature (premature babies usually take a little longer to develop), his physique, his character and, incredible as it may seem, if they are first-born or have any older brother . Older siblings are always a kind of incentive, since the little one wants to walk to be able to play with him.
DON’T WORRY TOO MUCH
It is very important that you understand that each child follows his own rhythm, because only then will you be able to respect the rhythm of your child. Just like not everyone gets a degree in four years, and there are those who take seven, but they end up taking it, with this walking is the same . A child may need more time, perhaps because his character is scarier, or perhaps because his body is not strong enough yet, but he will end up walking.
In the event that you notice that your child is not able to walk due to any type of physical problem, we are no longer talking about a simple delay, but something that could end up affecting their development at other levels. At that point, it would be interesting for you to go to a specialist, so that this is the one who will tell you what steps should be taken, and what procedure should be followed.
In the meantime, be very patient . Keep opting for carts or carrier backpacks when going out, let him investigate at home always with the help of walkers, shake his hand when he needs it and you can give it to him, and treat him with all the love in the world. Forcing him won’t do any good; what’s more, it could even increase this delay even more, making it take longer than necessary to walk . And surely that is not what you want.
If you try to make him walk before the count, you could be damaging his spine, and even the muscles of his legs . If you have not yet started walking, it is for something, since the body is wise. Even so, if you have doubts, the best you can do is go to both the pediatrician and a physiotherapist who specializes in young children; The latter, by knowing perfectly how the body works, will be able to tell you if something is wrong with your baby or if it simply has different rhythms from those of other children. If something happens, they will tell you how to solve it and there will be no other type of problem; on the other hand, if nothing happens you can calm down and forget all your worries.Enjoy each phase of your child, because these will never come back! Although now it seems like a burden to carry them, one day you will miss it a lot.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.