14 month old not walking - when to worry?

[tryingtotoddle]

Hi everyone! My son turned 14 months a few days ago and I'm a bit concerned that he's not walking independently yet. He crawled at 8 months and started pulling himself up and cruising the furniture at 9 months. He now basically runs around the furniture and in the last week or so he's been really into climbing (and he's been crawling up the stairs for about a month or so), but if he's standing and tries letting go to stand independently he gets nervous and quickly grabs onto something again. Therefore no independent steps either.

He also has a push walker which he's very good at using but rarely pushes it without our encouragement - to be honest I don't think he sees the point of just pushing it around because when he wants to get somewhere he just crawls/cruises!

I spoke to the health visitor about it and she said he might feel better with more support on his feet, so said to get him pre walkers, but I don't understand how pre walkers differ from shoes, which I thought you were supposed to avoid until they are actually walking? She also said that if he's not walking by this time next month they can refer him to a physio.

Just to add, I've no concerns about any other area of his development at all - he has excellent fine motor skills and he's really chatty with a good few words now. Plus he's just a really happy little guy in general and always has been!

Would love to hear the thoughts of the Mumsnet hive - thanks so much!

Surprised at the response from your Health Visitor - isn't it from18 months they begin to consider physio referrals for toddlers who aren't showing any signs of readiness for walking.
I think your toddler is showing signs of readiness but he just doesn't want to walk yet or isn't 100% ready to do it.
I'd give him a couple more months and just give him as much free explore time as possible.
My DS is 12.5 months old and has been cruising for about 2 months and will stand independently if he's holding something in both hands but he shows absolutely no interest in walking yet - I'm just going to give him more time and let him figure it out.
Agree with you about the barefoot thing - socks or barefoot inside are better for learning to walk. Prewalkers are for outside just to get them used to the feel of wearing something on their feet and to give a bit of extra protection.

If you're super worried I found Emma Hubbard's videos really helpful when I was trying to encourage my DS to learn to crawl. She's done a few on walking.

Thanks so much for this. To be fair to the HV, she did note that the range for walking is large and that we could well be waiting until he's 18 months old - she probably just wanted to be seen to be taking action in light of my concerns.

Interesting about your son standing when he's holding something in both hands - mine will actually do this too, it's the only time he'll stand independently and I think it's because he's not thinking about the fact that he's standing!

Thanks a million for the videos, I'll check them out!

My daughter didn't walk until 17 months and is now a perfectly active 2.5 yr old. There is a huge range of normal and my understanding is that medical staff aren't even bothered until 18 months, and don't properly worry until they are closer to 2.

There are 1000s of skills that children need to learn, some of them they will be quick to and some of them slower. Walking is such an obvious skill that it makes us worry when they are a bit behind average.

By the sounds of it your son is really close to walking, much closer than my daughter was at that age. Try not to worry.

Thanks so much for your reply. I think you're so right about walking being one of the more obvious skills. And I guess as a result, it is also the one that everyone keeps asking about: "is he walking yet?", which really doesn't help! I get asked that way more than whether he's talking or literally anything else, so I'm definitely developing a complex about it!