05 Nov Trying to help your child 👶🏻 to learn to walk 😳

😳Did you know that you could be teaching your child to walk incorrectly

The First Step 👣is one of the important milestones in a baby’s gross motor skills development. Parents will always remember those moments of joy 🤗when baby lets go and takes that first independent step. However, many parents and grandparents in their attempts to help their little one learn to walk, they are unknowingly actually teaching their little one to walk with the wrong movement pattern. 😬When that happens, a little one may take longer to walk independently or may walk with poor patterns like tip toe walking.

The common mistake 🙅‍♂️that parents make when helping their child to walk is that they hold them by the hands with their arms up above their head. This causes the child to lean forward on their toes 🦶and hang their weigh on their arms which does not help the child to learn how to balance on their feet properly. Sometimes parents are swaying side to side as they hold their child’s hands which causes a child to walk like a robot with stiff knees side to side. 🤖

The correct walking pattern should be to balance with feet flat 🦶and knees bending to take steps forward. So the best way to help your little one learn to walk by holding them around the hips from behind them, while you are on your knees walking with them.
If walking on your knees is too sore 🥴for you then you can hold your little one from behind by their hands with their arms by their sides. This would mean that you are bent over forward which may be stressful for your lower back, so be careful to look after yourself.🤔

🙅‍♂️Avoid baby walkers as they do not help baby to learn to walk sooner instead may cause baby to learn to tip toe walk.

If you are concerned about your little one 👶🏻who is not yet walking and would like some help to promote your child’s development, ring My Favourite Physio 📱on (02) 9790 4233 to speak to one of our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists 🤓today.

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