Late walkers and toddler activites

[MeadowHay]

I have a bum shuffling 1 yr old who is nowhere close to walking or even cruising. I read an NHS leaflet that said bum shufflers are usually late walkers and usually learn to walk around 18-24 months. Thinking ahead, I'm wondering whether I will start to have difficulties with her as she gets bigger and her interests develop but she is unable to walk...e.g. toddler groups. I have a few friends who have children who from around 14-18 months were running around playing and went to playgroups where they would run about and play with toys etc. I am wondering how my DD will be able to join in/engage with those kinds of playgroups if she can't walk? And no doubt I will be a bit worried if I took her to those sorts of things about her getting accidentally hurt by the children running about if she's stuck on the floor?

[Lookingforadvice123]

My DS walked at 18 (almost 19!) months. I'm not going to sugar coat it, it was frustrating, restrictive and sometimes a bit embarrassing. But when he finally did walk it was the best thing ever!

Playgroups etc will be fine, she can just bum shuffle/crawl/cruise (my son was a crawler from 10-11 months, never bum shuffled, but wasn't cruising until 14 months either). She will get to the toys she wants! She can still sit for songs/snacks etc. I also still took DS to softplay etc, just make sure it's a suitable one with a baby/toddler area, so your DD doesn't get knocked down by much older kids.

Outdoor activities were what I found challenging eg park, as I couldn't let DS just crawl around. I would walk him by the hand but to be honest he wasn't keen on that until he was a good bit older anyway (14-15 months). He'd have a go on the swing, I'd be able to place him at the top of the slide, and that was about it.

[MeadowHay]

Good point about the park. Although we do go a fair bit now to be honest, we just put her in the swing for a bit and then push her around in pram or DH carries her in the Little Life backpack and we feed the ducks, walk around then if weather is ok sit on picnic blanket and let her play with toys and if she bum shuffles off on to the grass I don't mind about her getting dirty as long as it's dry. She's covered in food half the time anyway. So I guess we will just continue as we are in that respect.

I am really dreading all the comments we will soon be getting...when she hadn't sat unsupported by bang on 6 months everywhere I went people would be like "oh she's not sitting yet?!"! And she sat at 6.5 months so that's not late by any stretch. We have had to endure "she's still not crawling yet?" for a few months but that stopped now she can bum shuffle the last few weeks. So next up is walking...and speech as she's behind with her speech too .

How do you know when they can go down a slide themself?

[Lookingforadvice123]

She might not be late to walk, you never know. My DS1 wasn't sitting solidly until about 7.5 months. Physically he was definitely noticeably weaker than his peers, I still think he is a bit at 3.5. How many months is your dd?

Don't worry too much about her speech, a lot of children get an explosion around 18 months. My DS' speech seemed roughly average until he was about 17 months then he suddenly got loads of words, and was putting two together around 19-20 months.

I don't remember having too many comments but I was very defensive about it. I started to worry about muscular dystrophy though when he got to 17 months as they automatically test all boys who don't take independent steps before 18 months, so that worry took over. He did luckily take independent steps before 18 months so didn't need the test.

You do need to develop a thick skin about this sort of thing as a parent as there's always something that others will do better/earlier than your child.

[MeadowHay]

Yes I know I don't get upset so much as annoyed with other people as I think how would they like it if their child was a bit behind and I kept drawing attention to it all the time. And people make the stupidest most patronising comments. We had a lot of "oh you should be putting toys out of her reach then she'll crawl" yes like we hadn't thought of that before...!

She is 1. She has no words yet and bum shuffles. She saw the paed this week who agreed she seems a bit behind in multiple areas but none that trigger further testing or intervention atm.

[Lookingforadvice123]

Is she 12 months? I don't think many 12 months have (m)any words! So don't worry. DS1 was just babbling da da at 12 months, nothing else really. At 15 months they look for between 1 and 6 words (or they did in 2016! Might've changed a bit now).

[MeadowHay]

Yep 12 months. Idk but the paedtrician asked us if she could say any words and family members are starting to ask now too. She can't say many consonents yet. She has never said mama yet at all. She says dada rarely. Mostly she just says gaga and vowel sounds like 'ah' 'uh' etc xD I know I should chill I feel like if it was my second and my first had turned out reasonably ok I wouldn't be worried but I feel like with your first you constantly worry that you're doing something wrong!

[Rainatnight]

My DD was late walking and other people’s reactions are sometimes annoying but you can get on just fine at various activities.

We went to stay and play at our local children’s centres a lot and she played with stuff she could reach and really enjoyed it. And in fact, the range of different stuff to play with was probably good for her physical development, in retrospect.

She never got trod on. I do believe that slightly older kids have sixth sense about treading on babies. She was still crawling once summer at a really hectic splash pool near us and was completely fine.

[MRex]

Most of the babies aren't walking at 12 months. Some of them spent many months cruising and then walked, some of them just stand up one day and take off. My friend's son was a bum shuffler and he walked at 14 months, same as my son. Another friend had a non-crawler (did a weird wiggle-on-his-back to get about) but he suddenly took up crawling at 13 months. It's so hard not to worry, but all you can do is offer opportunities. Baby gym classes and music classes can be good for the babies to just watch others and learn from them how to get around and the advantages it brings like getting at toys. We got a hefty harness than DS can basically be swung in so that he could get around once he was cruising, it made park walks more fun for him. Also he could climb stairs before he had a nice crawl, which was nice exercise at home.

As for words, mine is 15 months and still very few of the babies do more than a couple of words until 18 months from the baby groups we go to. Maybe they're all slow verbally!

[GinMama1]

My DS was a late walker (19 months) and I did find it quite hard at some of the more active baby groups because she couldn't do things that younger babies could. She could get around pretty fast on her bum and we ended up buying some cheap waterproof trousers from Lidl to protect her clothes outside. We did take her to soft play and things, and just helped her out more.

[MeadowHay]

Waterproof trousers are a great idea!

I feel a bit better about it all now after being at a toddler's birthday party the other week with toddlers running about everywhere and she was just bum shuffling off all over dead happily. No problems at all. And same in the park, but I guess park is a problem in the winter months though.

Thanks everyone. She is showing more motivation now, she bum shuffles up to me and DH and then tries to grab onto us to try to go into a standing position and then wants us to hold her hands whilst she walks about. But she's very wobbly, and she can't really cruise at all.