So when your LO started to walk....

[LaTrucha]

What happened before?

My DD is 1. She has never had any interest in crawling at all. She can roll over but doesn't see the point. She has never tried to get into the sitting position from lying down. All she wants to do all day is be walked around by the hands and has been doing it for months. She has just developed a very limited interest in pulling herself up. For example, she will pull herself up by grabbing my jumper if she is sitting astride my knee IYSWIM.

Does she need to do a lot more of this before she starts walking or might she just go for it. I'm not that bothered as a stationary baby is pretty easy but she is so frustrated.

Just wondered what experiences others had had.

dd showed very little interest in crawling and wanted to stand/pull herself up first. Even when she did 'crawl' it was more of a kind of crab/walk on hands and feet!

They usually coast around holding onto furniture for a while before walking unaided my dd used to just stand up without pulling up on anything and after getting to that stage she started walking after a few days. IIRC. DD2 however crawled for ages!

My son was 20 months before he took his first steps. Even then he was about two and half years old before he could walk more than about two paces without falling on his bum. He had a child physio for 18 months because he had orthopedic problems.

At the time I worried myself sick, but he is fine now. At the age of seven years old he is fine. He can run about the playground and have fun with his friends.

Every child's development is different. There is very little evidence that the age that your child walks at has anything to do with intelligence. I suspect that the age children walk at has a lot to do with personality as well as brain development. My son is terribly cautious where as a child with a more of a risk taking streak might walk sooner but have more falls.

Interesting replies. Thanks.

I'm not worried about it, just curious. I think she is just about to start coasting but we haven't much ot coast ON.

I tend to just do what she wants to do but I am starting to strategically leave her to play next to things she could pull up on if she got the yen.

Blimey - I could be reading about my DS (now nearly 4)and I wish I had read your post when he was 11/12 months as I worried so much!!! He did not roll-over (hated being on his tummy), did not crawl and did not pull himself up on furniture until probably 18 months. All that said, he walked at 13 months so I expect she will get there without doing any of the former! He loved his push along walker thing and staggering between me and DH!

I was under the impression that crawling first was an important developmental stage .... am I wrong / does it mater?

ds1 bum shuffled. He never crawled because he has erbs palsy and one arm at that time was dead as a dodo! couldn't support him.

Bloody HELL though, he could shoot across a room on his arse! I swear he was faster than any crawler I've ever seen! He used his good arm to move himself and you could hear BANG BANG BANG as his arse hit the floor! It was certainly a unique way of solving the problem!

Lost time ago now, but I seem to recall that he took to hauling himself upright and then one day, around his 1st birthday, he walked across the kitchen!

didn't bloody stop from that day to this!

ds2 crawled, then coasted round the furniture then, what a strange co-incidence, around his 1st birthday, he also walked across the kitchen! Odd, wasn't it?

One of them started walking a few days before their 1st birthday and the other started walking a few days after their first birthday. but you know, for the life of me I can't remember which was which!

And at the time it's all consuming, isn't it? I'm a bad, bad, mother!

DS crawled at 6mths, cruised round furniture from 7mths,could walk with a brick trolley at about 9mths, but didn't stand unaided until 11mths and then just before his first birthday he suddenly started to walk.

then he spent quite alot of time walking a few steps before falling on his bottom and then bum shuffling to his destination

it took another three months before he was a sturdy enough walker to take his first steps outside

I think that there have been studies concerning lack of crawling with co-ordination/clumsiness problems
but I don't know details.

From what I know, (hearsay from a friend whose LO has CP) crawling isn';t considered a developmental milestone. Some kids do, some kids don't.

Hecate - your LOs obviously have sense of timing and occasion! None of my friends seems to be able to remember when their LOs walked - and most fo the LOs are still under 2!

Ten - there have been some links between not crawling and dyspraxia but I'm not too concerned. DD most resembles my FIL and he was a professional footballer. He can't remember whether he crawled or not

Not crawling seems to be pretty common - at least among my acquaintance.

"All she wants to do all day is be walked around by the hands and has been doing it for months."

Mine was just the same. My mum tricked her into walking alone at about 14 months and she never looked back. She's very very risk-averse and hardly ever fell when she did start walking. Enjoy it, I'd say! My daughter is far from clumsy and just needed a bit of time to get used to walking.

Oh, and she couldn't roll over until well after she started walking - maybe at about 18 months?

Ah that's interesting. I'm wondering if DD is going to be a very good walker quite quickly once she gets going because she is SO careful about the way she steps.

The child physio my son had told us that not walking before the age of two years old was non issue. She did not start to seriously worry that a child might never walk until the child got to four and half years old!

Also if a child can sit up by the age of two then in the majority of cases a child will eventually learn to walk.