8 month old just wants to stand up and walk with our support

[Cafeaulait27]

Since our baby was 6-7 months old he just wants to stand up, and have us help him balance by holding under his arms. He has also mastered putting one foot in front of the other so all he wants to do now is walk around with us holding so he can balance, if we let go he would fall over.

He doesn’t crawl, hates being on his tummy and doesn’t bum shuffle. He gets frustrated after a while sitting and wants us to stand him up, he even plays with his toys standing up.

he has just started to touch the furniture while doing this and look up at toys on the coffee table while sitting and try to get them, but he isn’t cruising yet and doesn’t use the furniture to steady himself or to hold on to.

I know all babies are different and he’ll get there eventually with walking but I was wondering if anyone else’s baby did this and when they started cruising/walking?

at the moment it’s a killer on my back, arms and knees as I’m doing this a lot of the day to keep him happy. He puts his arms up and gets frustrated when sitting sometimes and I don’t like to see him upset so I stand him up, and I am trying to show him how he can grab hold of furniture by putting his toys on the coffee table so he can see them and try to get to them.

i know once they’re walking it’s not easy but my knees, arms and back are not loving this 😂 am I doing the wrong thing by walking him around? Should I be letting him ‘struggle’ so he figures it out?

thanks!

I’ve googled too and it seems mostly US sources, and not much actual evidence, it’s theoretical. No UK studies.

it’s documented that certain cultures carry their babies until they walk, so no crawling and no dentrimental effects.

the “detriment”, if any, appears to be in late walkers who don’t crawl, who are slower with motor skill acquisition. I can’t find anything suggesting early walking has detrimental affects later on.

we saw a paed for a developmental check at about 6.5 months when dc was cruising, they said nothing about encouraging crawling. Nursery also never mentioned not crawling would cause harm.

@SaltySalad if you can find a large scale study comparing crawlers to non crawlers i’d love to see it.

Of course it depends on your interpretation of “developmentally fine”. It may appear that way yea, but we also know that 20% of children in any classroom have a degree of learning difficulty eg processing

did this 20% not crawl? Do you have that information? How do you link not crawling to a learning difficulty?

How do you link not crawling to a learning difficulty?

sorry, answering my own questions here. Not heard of this before and learning a lot!

it would appear it’s chicken and egg- not crawling as part of motor delay is indicative of a learning issue. It’s not that not crawling causes issues, it’s that in children who may develop learning issues are helped by encouraging crawling.

so skipping crawling and walking early is not an issue, whereas in late walkers who don’t crawl this may be indicative of an issue.

it seems similar to kids who W sit. Now I’m a sports coach and we always refer W sitters to the GP. Because it can indicate an issue with core strength and correct physical development, and should be discouraged. But sitting in a W position does not cause the core issues.

Just following along because my wee boy is exactly the same OP! He's 8 months now and I don't see him crawling, he's just focused on walking. Seems bright enough to me, no major concerns about his aptitude for learning...

Actually will be more impressed if he turns out active and sporty like other PPs' kids because god knows where those genes have come from, that's not from me or H!

@SaltySalad everything ive seen about development so far has said it’s totally normal for some babies to not crawl. I thought it was fairly well accepted that some babies crawl, some bum shuffle, and some just walk. And that’s not even what this thread is about!

I can’t force him to crawl when he hates being on his tummy.

im not really sure what problems not crawling brings up, as I never crawled and there’s nothing wrong with me?

Just had a google as I’ve never heard this before about crawling and found this very interesting article about societies where babies are carried until they can walk: www.scientificamerican.com/article/crawling-may-be-unnecessary/

“In his observations of 113 Au mother-child pairs, Tracer found that babies up to 12 months old were carried upright in a sling 86 percent of the time. On the rare occasions when the mothers put their infants on the ground, they propped them up in a sitting position, rather than placing them down on their stomachs. As a result of spending all of that time upright, Au kids never learn to crawl. (They do, however, go through a scoot phase in which they sit upright and propel themselves along on their bottoms. Tracer says the Au believe that this scooting, rather than crawling, is the universal human prewalking phase.)The Au are not alone in discouraging their children from crawling. Tracer notes that babies in a number of other traditional societies—including ones in Paraguay, Mali and Indonesia—are raised this way. Furthermore, he observes, neither do our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, put their youngsters on the ground very often. Thus, it may well be that our early hominid ancestors toted their babies around, too, rather than letting them crawl.
Citing a study of Bangladeshi children showing that crawling significantly increases the risk of contracting diarrhea, Tracer proposes that carrying infants limits their exposure to ground pathogens. It also protects them from predators. He therefore contends that the crawling stage is a recent invention—one that emerged only within the past century or two, after humans began living in elevated houses with flooring, which would have been much more hygienic than dirt.”

and this one which explains that the ‘all babies must crawl’ theory has been disproven: www.healthychildren.org/English/tips-tools/ask-the-pediatrician/Pages/if-a-baby-skips-crawling-trouble-reading.aspx

“There is no scientific evidence that supports this old theory that was introduced over 60 years ago by physical therapist Glen Doman and educational psychologist Carl Delacato. They proposed that if a baby doesn’t go through the neurodevelopmental stages in order, such as crawling, creeping and then walking, then the child is at higher risk for all sorts of disorders.

Although this idea was disproven years ago through scientific studies, unfortunately this misinformation still circulates. There are some developmental milestones that are more important than others when it comes to chances of future reading and learning differences, but this is not one of them.”

such a large amount of people never crawled that I can’t imagine it would cause/indicate learning difficulties. As I said, I didn’t and have no learning difficulties.