Little Walker in the Making

Babies go at different paces
DD crawled at 8mos, started cruising on furniture by 9mos, but didn't walk on her own until a week before her 1st b'day
DS crawled at 10mos, cruised at 11.5mos and walked on his own at 13mos.

DH walked at 9m2d and ran 9m6d !!
We have a niece who walked at 6mos and ran at 9mos.

Sounds to me as though your baby is right on for his stage. One can never tell how long Baby will cruise on furniture before letting go.

HTH

K., mama to
Catherine, 4y
Samuel, 14m

It's really hard to say. A lot of babies hold on to stuff for a long time, but don't take their first solo steps early.

I worked as a portrait photographer, and there were a lot of infants who were regulars, and many of them went from crawling to pulling up and creeping really quickly, but even at their one-year birthday portraits, they had to hold onto something.

MY son was late on EVERYTHING (and I do mean big-time late), and we ended up getting him one of those little cars with the high back that can be ridden on or pushed from behind, and it helped him get around, but still feel like he was holding on to something solid.

Just be patient.

Also, keep in mind how futile it is to give much thought to how soon he'll be doing everything. They develop at different rates, and in different skills. So your son might have mastered crawling and pulling up, but then take a break from learning gross motor skills in favor of improving his verbal or fine motor skills, then come back to walking later. We can help them in some ways, but when it comes right down to it, we have no control over when our kids reach developmental milestones, so as long as he's not severely late in something, wondering and worrying won't make a difference.

Both my girls were early walkers. One walked at nine months and the other at ten months. Just start baby proofing because now they really will start getting into everything!

Probably so. My oldest started walking at 8 months and totaly bypassed crawling. My son was an amazing crawler and did not seem to feel the need to start walking until he was 10 months old. And my youngest was in between, walking at 9 months. But all babies do it differently. Some kiddos will get to the cruising stage (walking holding on to stuff) and decide they are comfortable with that for a while.

Hey J.,
You are probably right. My son was the same way and was actually walking by nine months. Don't worry about it though. He will walk when he is ready.

B.
www.MoreForMyBaby.com

It is not that easy - your son is actually the only one who knows if he'll be walking early or not. I have a really active little boy who rolled to get places at 4 mos and crawled/climbed and stood up all on the same day at 5 mos. At 8mos he was creeping - i.e. walking around holding on to things. We thought any minute he'd let go, but alas, no. He let go and actually started walking the week of his 1 year birthday.

My daughter on the other hand, rolled to get places at 4mos, crawled at 6mos, climbed at 8mos, never creeped, she just started appearing in the middle of rooms, standing, and suddenly the week after her birthday she was walking! It took her 2 months to walk with the grace my son walked his first steps...

We've got a neighbor that is 1 month younger than my daughter, so he is 17 mos, and he walks perfectly as long as someone is holding his hand, but he doesn't walk by himself.

So, my point is, you can't tell.

Who knows? My son has been pulling up since he was seven months, he will be ten months soon but I still think it'll be over a months before he takes a step.