Walking by their first birthday? Not necessarily
Many toddlers walk later than you might think. The typical range is wide—9 to 15 months for those first wobbly steps ❤️
If your child isn’t starting to walk by their 15-month checkup, bring it up with their pediatrician. In the meantime, here are a few tips to support your child’s walking development.
Keep them crawling, too
Even if your toddler has started walking, encouraging them to keep crawling now and then has many benefits. Crawling helps to coordinate the left and right sides of the brain, strengthens arms and upper body, builds core strength, and helps with hand-eye coordination.
You can keep your toddler crawling by getting a Play Tunnel or by making an obstacle course with pillows for them to crawl over.
RELATED: Everything to know about walking
Go barefoot
Unless they need shoes for safety, allow your child to play barefoot on a variety of textures and surfaces, such as grass, carpet, sand, and rugs. Research shows that being barefoot provides valuable sensory information to your baby’s feet. It also allows natural ankle mobility and can increase foot arch.
Keep hands and arms low when “walking” your toddler
If you hold your baby’s hands over their head as they learn to walk, your child will pull on your hands to find stability rather than engaging their core muscles, says Giselle Tadros, a pediatric physical therapist. “Try using encouraging words to help your baby, and if they insist on having your hands to help them, offer them a pinky finger below shoulder level,” she says.
With less help from you, will your baby fall down more often? Probably—and that’s okay. “Falling is actually an important part of learning to walk,” says Tadros. “Each time your baby stumbles or falls down, they learn a little more about how their body interacts with the space around them.”
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Learn more about the research
Gimunová M, Kolářová K, Vodička T, Bozděch M, Zvonař M (2022). How barefoot and conventional shoes affect the foot and gait characteristics in toddlers. PLoS ONE 17(8): e0273388.
Posted in: 11 - 12 Months, Crawling, Gross Motor, Walking, Physical Development, Motor Skills, Child Development
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