Hi all,
I have had a lot of support on mumsnet since DS was born in Dec 09 and I would love to share the story of his walking to reassure anyone who is the slightest bit worried about their LO's development.
DS took his first unaided steps at 25 months, but was not walking confidently until almost 26 months. As my first child I had scoured the internet for advice and guidance but found very little - I could not find any child who had walked later than about 22 months. We had been referred to a paediatrician at 18 months, who failed to find anything wrong and then had a follow up at 22 months, who again said that since DS was now attempting to pull himself up there was progress and all we could do was encourage it. My concern was that something may be wrong with his inner ear (having read about this online) but he reassured me that DS would have been showing signs of being off balance or disorientated for this to be the case.
DS was not premature. He only started to bottom shuffle at 12 months and then at about 15 months developed what I named "the cruffle" - a very efficient crawl-shuffle hybrid, but he did not actually crawl on hands and knees until about 18-19 months and resisted any attempts to walk with me or DP holding his hands. And he refused to try any kind of walker. He only started to pull up onto his knees at 18 months and then to his feet around 22 months and do a little bit of cruising.
I grew sick and tired of all the "helpful" advice from people about how lucky I was that he wasnt walking and "just you wait til he walks, you won't have a minute to yourself!" I looked enviously at mothers of 12 month olds who were toddling around the park.
When he finally took his first steps (rather irritatingly my mother got him to walk holding his hands, grrr!) we were all so encouraging, but it was several weeks later that he actually took his first unaided steps, and typically, it was when he was at the childminder's house!
Now at 27 months he can run around as well as any child his age. He is a little behind with climbing up stairs, but that will come. Both myself and my DP were late walkers at around 17 and 18 months but after 20 months I was beginning to worry.
I would advise anyone in the same situation to have their LO checked out at 18 months but for any future LOs I will be a lot more chilled out! My heart does go out to anyone in the same situation because no one wants their child to be "behind" in any way.
xx