Why won't he walk!!!!

[MummyG17]

I'm getting really frustrated / worried. My DS has been walking with hands from 8 months, he started crawling, pulling himself up and cursing furniture at 11 months. He took his first steps at 13 months between me and his Daddy but at 16 months he still won't walk independently. He will walk independently between furniture or adults but won't walk independently without having a goal. Should I be worried? All his friends are walking and he's not.

Thanks.

Allow your son to crawl,climb and cruise on things as much as possible. This will help him strengthen his core, legs and everything else to prepare his body for walking. Children need lots of movement to strengthen their body. Once the whole body is physically strong enough he will begin to walk. Also it is very important that you allow him to learn to balance himself and his own weight. Using a walker creates false balance for him. Therefor when he is not in the walker he will actually have a more difficult time balancing himself as he has relied on the walker to do the balancing for him. The same goes for holding his hand to walk. You are giving him a sense of false balance by doing this and actually hurting his development. When he doesn't have you to hold his hand he will not be able to balance himself because you've done the balancing for him. So my advice is to allow him to crawl everywhere, and let him learn to balance himself. The less you do for him the better. He will get there but that requires a lot of exercise on his part. Hope this helps a little. Xx

I suggest finding a very good osteopath to check your DS out. Mine didn't walk until 18 months either, but the doctors kept saying it was normal. It wasn't until he was 7 we realised something was up with his neck/spine. Nothing serious - I don't mean to alarm you - but it had very slowly been pushing out of alignment since birth and causing all sorts of problems along with it.
Does your DS have a flat patch on the back of his head? Does his head look slightly tilted?

Interesting comments about the walker. My DS only learnt to walk thanks to the walker and his balance was a real issue. Perhaps if he had not walked beyond 18 months the doctors would have noticed something was wrong.

There’s a really good website called Mama OT, written by an occupational therapist. She’s got lots of games and practical ideas to try out to help kids with activities like walking.