Toddler can walk but won't!

[Lookingforadvice123]

I posted on here a month or so ago about my 17 month old who hadn't started walking. DS took his first steps (2-3) a week before turning 18 months and within a week was able to walk across the room, approx 20 steps. He was able to stand up independently (without pulling to stand) the same time. It's now 5 weeks since he took his first steps, he's turning 19 months next week and he still refuses to walk instead of crawl, unless he's not really aware he's doing it e.g. If you stand hi in front of the tv he'll walk towards it, or like this morning when he walked the full length of the hallway because I held a piece of toast out of his reach and kept moving backwards. It definitely seems confidence is an issue, although he's downright stubborn too. We've seen a physio who has no concerns, although he's having a blood test for muscular dystrophy as it's a routine thing they do for boys - but she stressed she had no concerns.

Both DH and I are saying "no crawling" all the time and making a concsious effort to walk him from room to room (holding his hand) which worked for a few days as he obviously thought it was a game, but he's quickly tired of it and gets stroppy when we stop him crawling.

What can I do? Is this even normal? As he was so late walking I thought once he was off, he'd be off.

Ds preferred to crawl until he was bout 19/20 months, although he could walk perfectly fine from about 10 months. There were various reasons for it:

1. It was quicker
2. He could push a toy car along
3. He could watch the wheels on the toy car as he pushed it (or the buggy wheels when out!)
4. I think he did actually like the feeling of the ground.

As long as he can walk when needing to, then he'll eventually decide he will always walk.
What I did do was introduce rule that he had to either walk when out or go in the buggy. He preferred to walk (although he used to walk with his head crooked down to watch the buggy wheels).