When Babies Usually Walk
Walking Funny
Walks on Toes
Toeing In / Pigeon-Toed
Limping
Refusing to Walk

There are early walkers and late walkers. Around fifty percent of babies usually walk by one year, but there is a wide normal range of walking, from nine to sixteen months. Walking is a matter of coordinating three factors: muscle strength, balance, and temperament, and the latter seems to influence the age of walking the most. Babies with easier temperaments often approach major developmental milestones more cautiously. Since crawling is speedier than walking anyway, confirmed crawlers are content to zip around on the floor like miniature racecars and show no interest in joining the tall and busy world.

Late walkers are more likely to be content to entertain themselves with seeing and fingering fun than with motor accomplishments. A late walker goes through the crawl-cruise-stand-walk sequence slowly and cautiously, calculating each step and progressing at his own comfortable rate. When he does finally walk, he walks well.

The early walker, on the contrary, may be the impulsive, motor-driven baby who has raced through each motor milestone before parents could get their camera ready. While there is no definite profile of early walkers, they tend to be high-need babies who early on left the lap stage and squirmed out of infant seats. Body type may also affect the age of walking. Lean babies tend to walk earlier. Early and impulsive walkers are often more accident-prone than their more cautious walking mates.

Parents who carry their babies a lot often ask, "Will I delay her walking by carrying her around so much?" The answer is no. In fact in our experience, and in the studies of others, babies who are the product of the attachment style of parenting (for example, worn in a baby sling for many hours a day) often show more advanced motor skills. No matter which baby in the neighborhood walks first or wins the speed race, the age of walking has nothing to do with eventual intelligence or motor skills. When and how your baby walks is as unique as his personality.

Toddlers' walking styles are as variable as their personalities. Most begin walking with their feet turned out, a position that improves balance. Next, as you are beginning to worry about his turned-out feet, baby turns his feet inward and becomes pigeon-toed. You can put off your mother's suggestion to take baby to an orthopedic specialist. Most toddlers' legs and feet straighten on their own by three years.

Most toddlers go through a brief period of toe walking, only heaven knows why! This is usually a habit or a bit of monkeying around. If it persists, your doctor should examine your child's calf muscles and Achilles tendons for tightness.

In the first two years nearly all babies toe in. This is due to two conditions:

• The normal bowing of the legs leftover from the fetal position in the womb.
• Normal flatfeet. Babies seldom develop much of an arch until the age of three years. To compensate, babies turn their feet inward while walking, in effect to make an arch and better distribute their weight. The normal developmental timetable for feet and legs is as follows:
• Bowed legs from birth to three years
• Toeing out, ballerina style, when beginning to walk
• Toeing in from eighteen months to two to three years
• Walking with straight feet after three years
• Knock-kneed from three years to teens

Besides curving in of the lower legs, called internal tibial torsion, (twisting of the major lower leg bone), another reason for toeing in is internal femoral torsion (twisting inward of the upper leg bones).

Here's how to tell the difference: Watch your child standing. If the kneecaps are facing straight forward, the toeing in is most likely due to internal tibial torsion. If the kneecaps turn toward each other ("kissing kneecaps"), it's most likely due to internal femoral torsion.

Encouraging correct sleeping and sitting positions can lesson both deformities.

• The saying "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree" certainly applies to baby's legs. Discourage your child from sleeping in the fetal position . If baby persists in sleeping in this position, try sewing the pajama legs together.
• Try to keep your toddler from tucking his feet beneath him while sitting; this aggravates internal tibial torsion.
• To lessen internal femoral torsion, discourage your child from sitting in the W-position but encourage sitting cross-legged or sitting with his feet straight out.

It's important to notice unusual walking habits in your child and report them to the doctor. Limping must always be taken seriously, and warrants a thorough medical exam. If your baby walks funny (for example, waddles like a duck or drags one foot), report your observation to your baby's doctor. While it usually self-corrects it's wise to have the doctor check your child's hips for injury or abnormal development.

If your previously normal walker suddenly refuses to walk, report this to your baby's doctor. Take notes based on the following:

• Can you recall anything that may have triggered the refusal to walk, such as an injury or scare after a recent fall? Record details of the day's activities before the walking strike.
• Do a parent exam. Undress baby. Feel and look all over the legs and feet for bruising, redness, swelling, and areas of tenderness as you carefully squeeze all the leg bones and anklebones. Compare one leg with the other; move the hip, knee, and ankle joints. Does the child wince in pain? Examine and tap around the soles for splinters and pieces of glass.
• Is baby sick? Has she been running unexplained fevers?
• Have there been any recent emotionally traumatic events?

Take your baby (and your notes) to the doctor for a thorough exam. Sometimes a toddler may refuse to walk for as long as a day or two, without any identified cause, and then she resumes walking. Toddler fracture, a slight break in the lower leg bones, are sometimes due to jumping from a high place. These almost always heal without treatment and are incidentally found years later on x-ray.