Can you share data on walking and first steps? My almost-16-month-old is cruising on furniture and climbing up the couch, onto chairs, and onto us with surprising agility but is unwilling or unable to walk on his own. We’ve heard varying opinions, from “Oh, he’s fine, he’s just lazy” to “You should have called early intervention months ago!” We’re usually in the “free-range parenting” camp, where we let him develop on his own schedule, but now we’re worried that (1) we haven’t done enough to facilitate his walking and (2) he will be delayed with other motor development.
—My baby skips leg day
Physical milestones are incredibly fraught. On one hand, they are so visible; it’s hard to ignore them. On the other hand, there is a huge range of normal for development of everything from rolling to crawling to walking. Walking has, perhaps, the widest range — typically, children start walking anywhere from 7 to 18 months. That age range is enormous. And there isn’t any good evidence that a child who walks sooner is, say, more likely to be an Olympic athlete (as I have said many times, your child almost certainly isn’t going to the Olympics, so please try not to think about it).
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In your case: not walking at 16 months is totally within the range of normal. If you are worried, though, ask your pediatrician. They’ll be able to tell — by looking at other movement and at muscle tone — whether there is anything to be concerned about.
As a parent of two late walkers (17 months!), I totally hear you on the anxiety. But … you don’t need to try to teach your kid to walk.
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I think one thing to add to this as the parent of a 19 month old with hypotonia who just barely started walking – has your baby been significantly delayed on other milestones? Our baby had feeding issues and was very floppy/had low muscle tone from birth. No one caught it so the first 6 months were particularly hard and scary as we struggled to figure out why he couldn’t suck anything. Our doctor didn’t seem worried when he was slightly delayed on milestones but we knew something wasn’t right. An OT specialist we saw for his feeding issues told us it was low tone, we had him tested for hypotonia through the state (The Regional Center in LA) and he qualified for PT, OT and Infant Stimulation services, all completely free. Not saying that all babies who are “later” on developing their motor skills might have hypotonia but if you noticed that your baby has in general been late for most motor skills it’s worth checking out. Side note, I didn’t walk until 18 months as a baby and my mother was so scared, and her doctor invalidated her concerns – pretty sure I have hypotonia too! Again, some kids are just more focused on developing language or are learning on their own timeline but kind of worth the peace of mind since it’s free to have someone test and free services if they would benefit your child. Absolutely helped us.