He's Finally Walking

He’s Finally Walking

We had it in our head that he would walk on his 1^st birthday.  He would stand up by himself.  He seemed like he would want to take a step.  It was like he was teasing us.  He would watch us as we held our breath and stared and well…his birthday just came and went without a single step.  We were fortunate that we had been exposed to parents who had little ones that didn’t start walking until 13, 14, and even 15 months because it is easy to get worried about these types of things.  Also, he was premature by 5 weeks so we have always known he could be behind until around two years of age (or not).  Needless to say, as with most things, we focused on the bad.  We kept thinking about the kids that started walking at 9 months and 10 months.  We began to try to force the walking; you know coaxing him with things he loves.    It would seem like he was going to take a step and then he would drop to the ground.  Finally somewhere at the end of his 12^th month, he took his first steps.  Of course we jumped on it and began trying to make him take steps every second like a little puppy doing tricks.  Once again, he showed us and didn’t really do it often.  Finally, shortly after 13 months, he began taking more steps and more and more until fast forward to today (he is 13.5 months) and he just walks circles around the house.  He almost never crawls.  He has broken out into a run a few times.  What I learned from all of this, is don’t rush your child into anything.  Every single milestone with our son has just happened.  We are so very rigid with our plans and our schedules and he just consistently laughs in the face of our ideals.  It’s almost like he never crawled.  We often go back and forth between forcing him into things and letting it happen naturally.  Happening naturally always seems to win.  Of course, we needed a baseline.  You also have to acknowledge a milestone for them.  We would clap when he would travel a longer distance with each session.  Of course by clapping, I mean being hysterical because I was so excited.  Now, with walking, incidences or injuries are increasing so it’s probable a good thing he waited a while to walk.