Hi Archie and other friends!

I was just visiting this site child development pages and found something negative for walker. Here is the content from page:

\";How can you help your child to start walking?

Walkers are definitely NOT recommended, because babies tend to rely on them too much. As a result, their upper leg muscles don’t develop as well as they should, and this could lead to a delay in the development of the walking milestone. In addition, each year there are around 200,000 injuries sustained by children due to walkers, and around 30,000 of these injuries are severe – they include fractures, dislocations etc.

Canada has banned the use of walkers, and the American Medical Association and various other organizations have proposed a ban on walkers in the United States. DON’T get your child a walker. \";

I am confused now on its usage. I have already got nice walker for my kid.

Archie what do you suggest as I was palnning to use walker when he become 5-6months old.

Any suggestion?

regards,
Sudha

archie replied. Dear Sudha,
Not that I am aware of such ban in USA. I am sure Advait's Dr. would have told us.

This is how I would suggest and is because this is how we treated Advait. Walker is last resort, I mean only when we are concerned on if baby is walking on time or not.

There is a lot of time before baby can officially take first step. It's true that some do as early as 9 months and some do as late as around 2 years. But by and large around first birthday most babies try to stand up on their own and cruise around. If this is happening there should be no concern on baby development achieving walking milestone. If this is not then one can get hold of some walker but the rule of any baby toys is \";do not let baby stay alone with toy. Always monitored by an elder person who knows how the toy works\";.

We offered Advait an exsaucer, a type of walker, where baby can seat in side or stand. There are two types of exsaucers, one is stagnant -remain at the position it's kept and has no wheels. While the other one has got wheels on the bottom so that it can move in the rotating or forward-backward direction. The one we offered to Advait was latter type bought in India. This was only when I knew he would hold his weight totally on his leg, when he was 5.5 months old. Some babies do not hold weight on their own as late as until 7--8 months thus such toys would be avoided before they can hold their whole weight on their legs. This step assures that baby has thy developing in normal way and can support his weight so the concern of mal development of upper leg is less likely be there.

This exsaucer can be offered initially only for a few minutes and may be two-three times a day to help baby get used to it.
However I did notice with Advait that exsaucer would delay him achieving walking. That was this way, he was able to push his exsaucer easily from completion of 6 months and he got well versed with it in a month. He was great with that. But when he was 10 months and he could stand without any support all we wanted him to is to take support of couch, table, wall and try to take steps whenever he wants. But it seemed like he was enjoying cruising activity for a over month. I was afraid of him getting hurt if he would have to walk and would put him in exsaucer. He would go here and there with mobile exsaucer and I think this led him not to take steps on his own. One day my husband gave me speech that he will fall and is expected. He got to take steps. We all fell down when we took our first steps and unless he is not ready we should not prevent him from walking, which is what we were doing by offering his exsaucer. I suggested him to buy walker, in fact we went to toysr-us and saw a few. Advait loved many walkers but my husband did not appreciate the way Advait used those walkers in the shop. He would run with the walker and in fact he fell two times. Once was a hard hit but nothing like fractures, we were just by his side. I kind of left decision of walker to my husband.
He started holding his hands and help him taking steps. In a two days, when we completely stopped him using exsaucer he started to take steps wihtout help but would get tired, tumbling, wobbling and all sorts of mistakes. But that was fun to see that he was indeed ready to walk and that exsaucer was delaying him to achieve milestone.

Thereafter I offered him exsaucer only if I not ready to follow him while he is walking otherwise he would have to walk on his own and by the end of 11th month he was good wobbler and would walk up a block (say abotu 100 meters) everymorning. It was cute. Because he was always in hurry he fell down two times once was bad hit and some bleeding but it got over in a day.

I would say do not give walker unless it's need. Let Advait achieve this milestone wihout much efforts. He has to achieve a few other milestones before walking. He would have to learn moving forward to get toy when he is on his stomach. He has to learn comfortable seating almost wihtout support. He has to learn crawling and then comes cruising and standing. I would say let nature take it's control. You can buy his exsaucer but try to keep it use minimized. This is a nice toy and fun for the one who is holding his weight on his own legs but child should not get used to it too much that he would avoid taking steps by himself.

hope this make some sense. I have no expertise in this area and all I could do is share my experience.

Archie