Not walking at 18 months

[pipiandbelle]

As the title suggests my LG is still not waking at 18 months. She was late rolling, sitting and now walking. We know she has hyper mobile joints as she had an appointment to look for hip dysplasia as she was breech (she didn't have it) but the dr said then she was very bendy. I also things she's generally quite uncoordinated and when she walks with us holding her hands she doesn't look very stable. Just wondering when I should be taking her to GP / HV. Now? 19 months? 20?! Not sure when I should get concerned. Thanks for any thoughts

My dd was under the children's community physiotherapist when she was a toddler, she said that 14 months is the average to walk but they didn't worry until 24 months. You should be able to get referral from your GP or HV.

Go to your gp and ask for a physio referral. The physiotherapists are the best people to do an assessment.

My daughter is 13m and hypermobile, my HV referred us to a physio at about 10/11m as she wasn’t crawling/weigh baring. Still not doing any but is improving all the time standing up.

DS1 was 16m before he walked. At his 10m check he couldn’t bear weight. They called a month later to check on progress (none) and offered me a physio appt. I declined as I just felt he would get there eventually. By 18m I think I’d have taken them up on the referral, just to get things checked out. I’d call up your HV team and get the ball rolling. There may be nothing wrong, but I’d want to know that.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I think I'll phone the HV this week. I think I haven't done it before because I'm a bit scared about what they will say.

DS has dyspraxia. He rneeded to be taught to walk, whereas the majority of children pick it up just by watching and trying. Our earliest physio exercises involved showing him how to get from one position to another (eg from sitting to standing), by actually hand-over-hand putting his arms and legs in the right positions and moving them for him. He needed a lot of practice in order to learn. He may never be a natural sportsman, but he got there in the end!

I'm surprised at how big the variations are here regarding professional advice. My DD is 11 months and cannot crawl, pull up, or cruise, or get into a sitting position herself. She has just started taking some unsteady steps if we hold her hands and 'walk' her a bit. She can stand confidently holding on and she can bum shuffle a little bit and that's how she moves around the room, by bending forwards and reaching for toys which means she bum shuffles a little. The HV came for her development review last week and said she was still on target with her movement milestones (especially as crawling and bum shuffling are not milestones at all). She said we only need to be concerned if by 18 months she hasn't taken any independent steps at all then we should see the GP for a referral to paediatric orthopaedics and probably have physio. So in your shoes I would be going to see the GP now but I'm really surprised that there are like 10/11 month babies being referred to physio especially when lack of crawling isn't something they should be citing as a reason for referral as that's not a milestone at all, tons of babies never crawl or bum shuffle and still walk before 18 months (I was one of them!).

My DS didn’t walk until 22 months. I worried about this constantly and everybody told me that there was no problem. He is now nearly 2 1/2, and his walking is still odd. He has a slightly odd gate and never looks completely stable. We have been waiting for a referral to paediatrics since December. You probably have nothing to worry about, but I would always recommend speaking to the health visitor - what is there to lose? Given how long we have had to wait for a hospital appointment, it’s definitely worth getting in early.