Cruising into 2022: 5 Tips to get your Toddler Walking
Children generally learn to walk on their own; however, some children need a little assistance to build confidence and strength required to take those first few steps. Below are 5 tips to prepare your little one for those exciting first steps!
Posterior play. Practice standing with your child’s back supported against a wall or in a corner. This sense of stability without support from hands can help build confidence while developing lower extremity strength for walking. Sing songs, play games, or read books to help distract them. Once they become comfortable, encourage them to reach forward to turn the page, or reach for a toy. This will help them to practice independent standing for short periods with their back briefly off the wall, building self-confidence.
Vertical play. Use of vertical surfaces such as a mirror, wall, or refrigerator gives less support and security than flat surfaces like the couch, or coffee table. Place magnets, stickers, or suction toys overhead, below, and to each side to encourage cruising and squatting activity. Squatting and overhead reaching further promotes less reliance on upper body support as the child reaches outside of their base of stationary support, engaging in dynamic balance reactions, promoting trunk and lower extremity strength.
Incorporate use of bi-manual tasks. Taking away from the focus of external support that your child relies on, offer a toy or object that requires your little one to use both hands to hold onto. Practice standing and walking with shared toys as well. Holding onto a toy gives less support than the furniture or your hands such as large balls, sticks, hula hoops, or anything motivating! Promoting standing and walking while your child is holding objects discourages reaching for support and encourages more activation of their trunk and lower extremity muscles.
Introduce the idea of “dynamic support”. Use of a weighted down shopping cart, stroller, or even a cardboard box that is tall enough for them to push will help to encourage weight bearing and moving through space with limited reliance on stationary support for stability. The use of a dynamic support will promote weight bearing through legs, weight shifting, and less reliance on a stable support as the child begins to anticipate the movement and adjust their body accordingly.
Change the surface and environment. If your little one walks along furniture, encourage them to transition to a different surface. Work on stepping between the couch and coffee table perpendicular to each other and then transition to parallel play between two surfaces. Once your child becomes comfortable with the two surfaces close together, slowly increase the distance between the two surfaces until they are taking a few independent steps between them. Playing in different settings also provides new challenges and different incentives to interact physically with surroundings!