Skipping crawling -straight to cruising

[MelanieJ]

My seven month boy sits well, but hates being on his tummy. He loves to be walked around the house when we hold his hands and cruises along the sofa. People tell meif he doesn't crawl, he wont read well and other horror stories. Is this true and can I encourage him to crawl?

Oh i would realy recommend you stop the hand holding!

It ended up driving me NUTS. ds2 did it from 10 monts till 1 3months and in hoiday in menorca I was white on my front and brown on my back from being continually bent double!

I would leave him to cruise -

DD was just the same. She started the 'walking' round holding hands at 5 months and loved it, and was cruising the furniture at about the same age as your DS. She was also sitting up on her own at 4 months. BUT, she hated crawling or even being on her tummy. She did crawl briefly between 8 and half months and ten months, when she decided to just walk on her own instead.

I wouldn't worry about the horror stories though. Neither me or my sister crawled much and both of us can read fine - we have both done just fine at school and uni, and have no other 'problems' that I can think of.

And my 18 month old DD is doing really well, although there is no stopping her with the walking and running at all.

MelanieJ, there should be an old thread on here about this somewhere which you could try and read. Apparently it concerns a report from some study that non-crawlers were more likely to have dyslexia, if I remember rightly. However, so many mums on here were happy to report this was not so with their children. The logic seemed to be that the rocking motion babies do when in the crawling position is seen as important to their brain development. However, at 7 months it is still possible your ds may choose to crawl. My nephew hated being on his tummy as you say and loved being walked about but he did crawl around 9 months and walked alone at 15 months. Perhaps someone clever can pull up the old thread for you?

DD barely crawled, tending to just shuffle around and then a lot of furniture cruising. She didn't walk independently til 15 months. However she's a tiptop reader (top of her class at the end of reception )

dp never crawled, according to his mother. He went from bottom-shuffling to walking. He got a degree, so I guess he can read!

There are links to not crawling and dyspraxia - which is kind of linked to dyslexia so that too probably. However I didn't crawl and although cack handed am not dyspraxic and certainly am not dyslexic. I think its one of those things where the risk of say dyspraxia is increased but not hugely so.

he may well crawl yet anyway- when he can support himself on his knees.

Melaniej,I too am worried about this,My ds is 13 mos and has been walked around holding onto both hands-then one hand since 8 mos,then a finger ,now nearly all the time on his own or cruising the walls.He has never crawled or bum shuffled,has only just managed to sit up from lying down.He stil hasn't mastered getting up on his own (needs to pull himself up )
I mentioned the fact that he's never crawled to someone at a toddler group the other day and she immediately said "oh he'll probably be dyslexic then"
I suppose it does make me aware of what to watch out for ,but he is showing no signs of any other abnormalities.Que sera que sera !

Thanks for all the advice. Was a huge relief to see I am not alone. Have decided to toughen up a little and ignore the grizzling when he is anchored to the floor or gets to the end of the sofa. Let him have a wee think about alternatives to moving sans Mum.