I have always been fascinated by how quickly after birth some baby animals begin walking. Giraffe, gazelle and elephant calves, for example, are up on all fours within a few hours of being born!

While human babies take a little longer — generally 9 to 18 months — it’s a miracle all the same. And watching the miracle of Squish learning how to walk was a fascinating process.

Having just turned one year old, Elsa has been enjoying full independence with her newfound walking skills for several weeks now, even if she’s a little top-heavy at times. Yesterday, she even walked up a small flight of stairs, having worked out how to use the wall as her support. Clever kid!

I had imagined this stage of parenting to be more demanding than before Squish could walk. In fact, we are finding it easier.

Back-breaking

See, more than two months ago, Elsa decided that she was ready to walk, even though she certainly was not. Every moment of the day, she would grab the adult’s hand nearest to her, pull herself up to a standing position, and demand to be walked around the house. For hours on end, we had to take turns with bent backs just to keep her happy.

Now that Squish can do it on her own, there are more bumps and bruises for her, but much less back pain for us — and we are all the happier for it.

Yesterday, we were in a friend’s backyard with other families from church. As I watched Elsa follow the older children around, it dawned on me that we have now entered a whole new era of parenting.

As a career nanny who has watched hundreds of children, my wife Angie expressed concern earlier this year that Elsa had not yet begun to crawl. We even had a paediatric OT visit our home to check if everything was okay with our daughter. She could say the word “crawl”, but showed no interest in actually crawling!

The OT assured us that all of Squish’s other developmental milestones were being met. Then, almost as though she’d been teasing us the whole time, a week later, Elsa began to crawl. And she only crawled for a few weeks before she began to walk!

Meeting Milestones

The lesson we learnt is not to worry too much about our child’s milestones, especially if they’re within the broad, acceptable ranges. Every child is different and might bring their various skills together at odd times and in odd combinations.

Crawling — like rolling, sitting up, standing up and “furniture cruising” — is a foundational skill a baby builds upon when they learn to walk. But there is no perfectly predictable timeline that a baby will follow. As parents, we need to learn to trust the process.

We did a lot of things to help Elsa develop the skills she needed to begin walking. We’ve maximised our playtime with her and kept screen time to a minimum. We’ve used lots of praise and words of encouragement. We’ve set up obstacle courses for her to explore indoors. We’ve tried to baby-proof our home. We’ve avoided the use of shoes.

These and many other strategies are helpful in the journey of making your horizontal baby vertical. In the end, however, the choice and the pace are up to them.

Your job is to cheer your child on and enjoy the process.

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Image courtesy of Unsplash.