Every time your baby takes a step on her own she needs to coordinate her arms and legs so that she maintains balance. Those leg muscles and the core muscles of the trunk work hard every time, and this is exactly what the body needs to do to gain the stability and posture required for walking. Think about the amount of muscle strength your baby develops purely by the action of plopping down onto his bottom when he loses balance and then standing up, over and over and over. Walking without assistance also is essential for the development of: This is not only back-breaking for you, but also increases your baby’s reliance on you for movement opportunities and one that BTW, is not particularly useful in later life …I mean how often do you walk around as an adult with your arms outstretched over your head? Once you start the finger-walking it may be hard to stop – your baby will want to do it again and again.These earlier movement patterns provide many of the building blocks the brain and body needs, not just for walking, but also for many other later skills, academic, physical and social! Read more here. Finger-walking reduces crawling and creeping opportunities.This is how your baby gradually learns to control her own body upright against gravity. With much practice, she eventually reaches across a space and takes a step without holding on. This provides practice at learning to balance while in the upright position. A little after a baby starts to creep or crawl on all fours, she also learns to walk or ‘cruise’ around the furniture, holding on.The same problem arises with the use of devices such as ‘walkers’ (which we strongly advise against) and other ‘walking aids’. When you ‘do the balancing for him’ he is getting less practice and will often walk later as he struggles to balance on his own. A baby learning to walk needs to do this constantly and needs to practice, practice, practice until he feels secure enough and has developed enough body awareness to use his arms for something else. Think about how you balance when you cross a narrow plank or log. They need to be held wide, out sideways from the body and they need to be free so they can adjust up and down when the body goes out of balance. Arms are an essential part of learning to balance when learning to walk. When you hold your baby’s hands – usually up in the air as you cannot bend down low enough, your baby doesn’t learn to balance himself.Really, it does look very cute as she works to put one foot in front of the other aided by the enthusiastic grip of a loved one, however, there are some major advantages in resisting this instinct and allowing your baby get walking without your help: The temptation to help your child ‘walk’ by holding her hands is a strong one. Why not ‘walk’ children before they walk by themselves? Today, in stark contrast, our children have the time to learn essential developmental skills in the safety of protected environments. So why do we hurry our children to walk? Perhaps it’s a hangover from the past when it was not safe to put a baby down on the ground, and was thus a matter of survival. Yet, she has only twelve months in which to get her body, her strength, balance and coordination prepared for the upright posture. It is likely that your child will walk for over 80 years. As you’ll hear us say repeatedly at GymbaROO – “Don’t be in a hurry for your child to walk, for it is not how early a child walks, but how much is learnt before walking that will influence the development of physical, social and academic well-being.” However, please don’t be tempted to ‘help’ your child to walk by holding their hands or ‘finger-walking’, because the skill of learning to balance upright on his own and to take tentative first steps without your help are actually essential to your baby developing core strength, muscular control, visual-spatial orientation, timing and judging distances, coordination and postural development. Find us at: GymbaROO-KindyROOĪs a parent, I know how exciting it is when your baby first starts to walk. GymbaROO-KindyROO kids are excelling academically, emotionally, in leadership roles and on the sporting field. Join the thousands of parents already raising smarter, happier babies with our online baby classes: The Active Babies Smart Kids series.
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