To ask how you got your DC to walk rather than use the buggy? *Potential autism*

[Alexandra80]

Back story; DS is 2 and a bit. He has suspected autism and is on the list for an assessment. He's delayed socially and a little physically. I.e.didn't walk until 22 months. His speech is very behind. He has a few word approximations but generally his understanding is quite limited and its hard to get him to understand tasks or suggestions. We're obviously working on all that with speech therapy and the like.

He's a lovely happy little boy. Until it comes to walking anywhere. He loves to be active but he will NOT hold hands. We're trying reins too and it's fine until he wants to go in another direction. He also has no sense of danger so if it was up to him he'd wander into bodies of water, nettles, the road... Everything. Today we took him for a walk as we're trying to help get him used to walking along with us instead of tbe pushchair and he tried to kneel in a deep puddle and splash his face with the water and had a meltdown over not being allowed to. And obviously he can't understand the reason or where we're trying to go. I thought it would be OK because he could kind of run around safely but there's nowhere that's 100% free of danger. Once he's set off that's game over as he's so worked up so we went home after 3 mins of getting to this place we were going to walk around. I had a little cry in the car on the way back. Pathetic I know but wtf do we do? Do we accept he just isn't able to understand what's required of him to do it yet and wait for his language/understanding to improve or keep pushing?

(I have a 9yr old DS who loved to bolt and thought I knew what I was doing but I'm at a total loss and Google is useless on the subject).

Thank you Freidas

My autistic ds was in buggy until age 4. After that he would stand on his micro scooter and I would hold the handle and pull him along. He was very active at home, nursery, school, soft play etc so got plenty of exercise. He couldn't walk when we were going places outdoors, maybe it was due to sensory things plus very unpredictable.

Genius, @mamtoteens. Wish I'd thought of that with my 6 year old who would run into the road or throw himself on the ground if he'd taken against walking in a particular direction or seen a nice big truck with lots of wheels that he fancied investigating, even if it was moving.

I had this OP.
I'll probably be flamed for this but, decades ago when my eldest (undiagnosed autistic at this time) was 2 I went out and bought a decent retractable dog lead and put him on reins.

I couldn't keep him safe and he needed to run all the time.

Crunch time was one sunny day when I'd taken him to a big play park that was fenced in. All safe and well. We exited the park to walk through an empty grassy area back to the car, he slipped through my fingers and bolted. Boy could he run. I only just made it before he hit the nearby road. I must have sprinted 500 meters.

That was the day I adapted my parenting and got the longest dog lead for a large strong dogs. He wore reins and I clipped it to the back. This way I had some control.
He became more aware by 3.5 -4 years so only used them for just over 12 months. It worked as he could run and change direction in open spaces. You have to be vigilant though as he had the potential to trip others up.

We used reins for our daughter, and whilst I'm sure this will be frowned upon, if we wanted her to have a bit more freedom but still needed control we did use the dogs extendable lead! We live quite rurally so she was not used to the dangers of busier places.

I should add we also used a buggy alongside reins until he was 4. He was tall for his age and I frequently had to explain to others that he needed it.

google proprioception and how to weight a small backpack for your son. It might be that 'outside' the buggy is too big a space for your son and he doesn't know where he is in relation to it, for want of a better description. I've known children who were previously runners when in open spaces be a lot less likely to run when they carried a backpack weighted to them.

Given also that your son has only been walking a few months, it is also to be expected that he might still like the sanctuary of the pushchair.

Also, remember that my experience and everyone elses is of their autistic child. As with another poster, I needed mine to be walking at 24 months due to younger siblings arriving. But I also had to manage them when they really just were not going to walk - I had a double pushchair and at one point had the 2 year old ASD balanced on the handle where I could hold him and the 4yo sat on the thankfully hard plastic footrest.

You do what you have to do to keep you sane and your children safe.