Practical Parenting Tips to Help Your Baby Learn to Walk
My coffee was halfway to my mouth when my friend Lila sighed so hard she blew a stray crumb off her kitchen counter. Her 11-month-old daughter Mia was planted right by my ankle, one chubby hand clamped to my calf, grunting like she was trying to will herself forward. “All the apps say she should be walking by now,” Lila said, nodding at Mia. “My cousin’s baby took his first steps at 9 months. What am I doing wrong?”
I grinned, because I’d been in that exact spot 18 months earlier, sitting on my own living room floor at 10pm, scrolling mom groups and panicking that my son Jax would crawl forever. I’d bought every gadget, read every article, and stressed over every week that passed without a first step. By the time Jax walked, I’d learned that most of the fancy advice I’d found was overkill, and a few tiny, low-effort changes made all the difference.
Mia was wearing fuzzy non-slip socks on Lila’s hardwood, and I nodded at her feet. “Take those off,” I said. Lila blinked, but did it, and Mia immediately wiggled her toes against the cool wood. When Jax was learning, my pediatrician told me bare feet help babies feel the ground under them, adjust their balance, and build the small muscles in their feet that they need to walk. I’d been putting Jax in cute soft-soled shoes every time he stood up, worried he’d bump his toes, until that appointment. Once I started letting him cruise and crawl barefoot around the house, his wobbly legs steadied a lot in just a week or two. It sounds too small to matter, but it’s the easiest change you can make. You don’t have to buy anything, just take off the socks and shoes when they’re playing inside.
Next, I pointed to the couch where Mia had been cruising, which sat a little higher than her waist. “Get a low, sturdy surface she can pull up on by herself,” I said. I’d made the mistake of grabbing Jax by both wrists and yanking him up to standing every time he sat, convinced that was helping him build leg strength. Turns out that not only strains their little shoulder joints, it also does the work for them. Pulling themselves up from sitting is how they build the exact strength they need to step. We moved Lila’s heavy canvas toy bin, which was just low enough for Mia to reach, right next to her play rug. Within a minute, Mia had rolled over, grabbed the edge, and pulled herself up unassisted, grinning like she’d just climbed a mountain. Lila’s jaw dropped. She’d never seen her do that before.
I told Lila I also used to hover right behind her, holding both her hands all the time when she stood, scared she’d fall and bump her head. I did that with Jax too, until my sister, who’s a pediatric nurse, pointed out that holding both hands means they never have to learn to balance on their own. If you want to help, only hold one hand, so they have to figure out how to steady their own body. Even better, baby proof the main area they play, pad the sharp corners, put any breakable mugs or vases up on high shelves, then kneel a few steps away and call them over. I did that with Jax, and after a few days of wobbling and plopping down on his butt, he started getting the hang of adjusting his weight when he leaned too far. Most falls end with them sitting down laughing, anyway, not crying. You don’t have to catch them every single time.
People always ask about push toys, and I tell them the fancy $50 ones I bought were a waste. Most cheap push toys roll way too fast, so the baby just gets dragged along and can’t keep up. Instead, I grabbed an empty moving box when Jax was cruising, filled the bottom with a couple of hardcover books to add weight so it wouldn’t roll too fast, and let him push it around the house. He loved that thing more than any store-bought toy, pushed it all over the living room every day for a month, and it cost me nothing. If you don’t have a big box, a sturdy laundry basket works just as well.
I also told Lila to cut back on long stretches in bouncers or stationary walkers. I used to put Jax in his bouncer for an hour and a half every night while I made dinner, which meant he wasn’t moving around or practicing on his own. Instead, I set up a baby gate in the kitchen, put a few toys on the floor, and let him crawl and cruise around while I chopped vegetables. It took me a little longer to get dinner done some nights, but it gave him way more time to practice moving on his own.
I also reminded her that the “average” age for walking is just that—an average. Some babies walk at 9 months, some at 15 months, and almost all of them are perfectly fine. The only time to check in with your pediatrician is if your baby isn’t cruising along furniture by 12 months, or walking by 18 months. Everything else is just variation between kids. Lila was so focused on matching her cousin’s baby’s timeline that she’d forgotten that, just like I had when I was waiting for Jax’s first steps.
A couple of weeks later, Lila sent me a blurry video taken from her phone. Mia was in the middle of the living room, three wobbly steps in, reaching for a goldfish cracker on the coffee table. She made it two more steps before plopping down on her butt, grabbed the cracker, and grinned. Lila texted that she couldn’t believe how fast it happened once she stopped hovering and made those tiny changes.
Last week, I saw Mia at the park. She’s walking steadily now, though she still crawls sometimes when she wants to go fast down the slight hill by the playground, which I think is funny. Jax still trips over his own feet running up the stairs some days, so milestones don’t mean everything fits perfectly on a schedule. I still catch myself comparing Jax to other kids his age, so I get the urge to rush. But walking is one of those things that happens when they’re ready, and you don’t need fancy gadgets or a lot of extra work to help them get there. Most days, the best thing you can do is get out of the way, and let them practice on their own terms.
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