One of the characters in a story I’m writing has a much younger brother. It occurred to me that there are certain aspects about babies I don’t know a lot about, so I did a bunch of research on baby-milestones. This one, however is more subjective, so I thought I’d ask people who actually have been around babies who are learning to walk (The only baby learning to walk I’ve ever been around is my kid brother, but I was only seven when he learned to walk, so I don’t remember it.)
What I’m trying to make a guess at, is how long is typical between baby first standing all by his or herself-meaning not holding on to Mom, Dad, a chair, the wall, the dog etc.-and baby first attempting to walk? It seems to me that one would follow the other quickly, but maybe babies do enjoy practicing standing up and making no attempts at moving for a while. How long did it take with kids you know? Oh, and how old were they at each point?
My baby daughter is currently at the standing alone stage (she has made a few abortive attempts to walk but hasn’t got beyond three or four steps). She has been doing this for two or three weeks - I’ll let you know when she walks. Pending that, someone else will be along to tell us both what to expect.
For my daughter, it was about 2 seconds. Just going off the experience of China bambina. She pulled herself up, and “walked” holding on to stuff of months. It was about a month of getting up somehow (like pulling up using a chair and then stumbling between two points. The evening she figured out how to stand, she then took about two steps and giggled so hard she promptly fell over. But from there she became a speed walker in just a few short days.
The munchkin learned to stand without help a couple of weeks before she started walking. She did the pull up and cruise the furniture thing for a while too.
When I would put her down I would put her down standing (She got really good at this about 10 months.) She’d then contemplate how to get where she wanted to go and if there was nothing to hold onto she’d drop and crawl. She started walking all by her self at 11 months.
For my kids (both of them) it was several week or so between standing unattended (briefly) and taking more than one step without falling. Then a week or so before walking. Then a few weeks of toddling. My son then immediately qualified to join the Olympic track team.
For my two kids - boy and girl - very quick transition from standing unaided to walking. A few days at most. They spent a lot of time “propping” - standing, then walking while holding onto something as a prop. By the time they could stand unaided, they were doing so in order to walk…
My little girl went from standing alone holding onto furniture at 10 months to walking within about 2 weeks. Almost skipped the crawl stage altogether.
My daughter I think it was a couple of weeks, maybe even three. My son went from sitting up (late learner… gravity’s a bitch) to walking in less than a month. Seems that once he’d acquired the muscle strength to hold up his enormous noggin he was off to the races.
None of my children were walking before 1. (Father of 5) IIRC some could stand unassisted for almost a month before walking.
My second child didn’t walk until she wore shorts to a playground and scraped her knees. That afternoon she decided she would walk everywhere.
My youngest was anxious to walk to keep up with his older siblings.
So consider your child’s motovation to walk too.
Depends. My firstborn got it pretty quickly… the twins are 5 months old now and getting the hang of sitting up on their own and rolling over, so I imagine they’ll be quick studies as well.
I would go to the bookstore and sit down with one of the approx. 765,357,121 child development books on the shelves. Right next to the 2,123,097,897 baby name books.
This is a good point. They say that many babies who are good crawlers don’t feel much of a need to start walking. This was definitely true of the Beansprout. He’s a fantastic crawler, so to him, walking is slower and more inconvenient than crawling.
So, he first pulled himself up at 10 months. He could stand unaided by 11 months. He started cruising (taking steps while holding furniture) and taking the occasional step by 12 months. He’s now 13 months, and he’s still barely walking. His walking is getting better, but he still prefers crawling.
Very true about motivation! My daughter was pretty motivated as she was always trying to figure out how to transport stuff by crawling… she’d kind of push/toss things forward and crawl to them and repeat… once she could walk OMG childproofing nightmare. She can climb EVERYTHING and thinks putting her sit n spin on the coffee table makes it more of a thrill ride! Nothing under 4 and a half feet is even remotely safe from her reach.
My daughter is 8 months and crawling and cruising, not yet standing without holding onto something. My oldest went from cruising to walking in what seemed only a couple of days and was running like crazy at 10 months old. My middle child rolled around a lot, then cruised for months (skipped crawling), and then finally walked unaided after his first birthday.
My nephew was 10 months when he started the game where he would go for anything in reach, and pull himself up, and cruise along the couch, and after about two weeks, out of the blue, he started screeching, and when I whipped around, there he was, standing, all by himself. It lasted for a few seconds, and then I grabbed his hand, and he took his first aided steps that night. A week later, he was a crazy man, walking all over the place, getting into everything. At 2, he can run with the best of them.
Kidcat started to walk along the furniture at about 9 months, was standing un-assisted for a few seconds at 10 and started walking at 11. She turned 1 2 days ago and is fairly ambulatory. She walks across the apartment with toys in her hand all the time now. I bet she’ll be running within a month or two.
My experience is similar to that of Green Bean’s. Our wee one is a magnificent crawler (I taught him all I know), but bipedalism came slowly to him. He could stand unaided by month 9, and walked along the furniture for a while; but he just began toddeling a couple of weeks ago, a few days before his first birthday. Still, now he seems to prefer motion in the upright position.
It varies a lot though; a friend’s daughter, only a couple of weeks older than our own little one, was up and walking by 9 1/2 months. She basically skipped the crawling phase.
Thanks for your answers! It looks like one does follow the other quickly after all.
Asking my parents wouldn’t have been much help, since with me they didn’t encourage me to walk (they already knew by the time I was eight or ten months old I’d be into everything) and were put out when my aunt got me walking during my first birthday party. And even if I could remember my brother learning to walk, he had foot problems, so he started walking several months after he was first cruising/standing.
(The only baby learning to walk I’ve ever been around is my kid brother, but I was only seven when he learned to walk, so I don’t remember it.)