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from sitting on his own to walking, is it ok?

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crawl walk
1K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  qanjinlso 
#1 ·
Hey mamis, so i have my almost 8 month old baby and a month ago he began sitting on his own, we still put pillows around him just in case he falls back. He started to swing forward to crawl, but he also just discovered that he can stand up if he grabs onto someones hands and he loves it and now he gave his first steps. I think he might skip the crawling part and go straight to walking at this pace! Now, a friend doctor told me not to let him walk before he crawls because the will be unable to develop a sense of space, it got me wondering.. should I encourage my baby to develop his walk or will he be skipping a phase? Has anyone been in this situation?
 
#2 ·
I used to work in the lab next door to a lab that studied infant motor development. :) That was about 15 years ago, but what they were saying then was that each baby learns at its own pace and some do not crawl--either they go straight to walking, or they have a stage of getting around by some other means, like my cousin who scooched along on her bottom in a sitting position using her feet. However, "cross-pattern crawling" where you put the left hand and right knee forward, then right hand and left knee, is believed to be important for some type of brain development (I forget what it is specifically, but it relates to spatial understanding as your friend said), so if a baby doesn't crawl on his own it's wise to encourage him to do some crawling later, like around 2 years old. You can encourage crawling just by modeling it, by getting down on the floor to play with your kid and crawling around yourself, maybe saying, "Can you do this?" It's not that every child needs to experience a certain minimum number of hours of crawling or anything like that, just that they need to know how to do it, and if a preschooler can't crawl after trying hard then that may indicate a neurological problem.
 
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#3 ·
Anecdotally, my Father in law reportedly walked at 6 months, never crawled according to DH's grandma. The Dr told her that he would never learn how to read because crawling helps develop the part of the brain that processes language and letters. Obviously, he did learn to read, but is a terrible speller (doubt it is related tho, DH is a terrible speller as well and didn't walk until 16+ months).
 
#5 ·
My now 3 yr old went from sitting up to walking unassisted at 8.5 months without crawling. He didn't need to hold hands or anything else when he started walking - he just started one day and went for it. We didn't encourage it; it just seemed to be what he wanted. He's not old enough yet to know whether skipping crawling has affected any development (we had people telling us to be concerned when he started walking), but it certainly doesn't seem to have harmed him thus far. He eventually did learn to crawl - can't remember at what age, though it was a while ago - and that also was without encouragement from me. So, and this is just my opinion, but if your child seems healthy I wouldn't lose any sleep over it at this stage and just figure that you have an early walker!
 
#6 ·
thank you mommies for your answers!
he is now begining to crawl, he tries to stand up and with his feet and hands on the floor tries to move around. its hilarious! at the same time he is learning to walk, i guess the best is to accompany him on both develoments!

thanx again! <3
 
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