I can understand the urge to walk babies. After all, they seem to like it so much. When we help our babies walk, they are gleefully entertained \u2014 enjoying us enjoying them \u2014 while we\u2019re getting a preview of one of life\u2019s major milestones. Sometimes we\u2019re compelled to walk our babies because we think they need help developing their motor skills and believe it our duty to teach them. We worry that our children will fall behind if we don\u2019t give them a hand or two (literally).<\/p>\n
So, why rain on this innocent parade and suggest not walking babies?<\/p>\n
1. Body wisdom<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly a baby knows just the way his joints should align,\u201d notes Carol Pinto, a longtime RIE Associate, Feldenkrais practitioner and friend. In other words, when it comes to motor development, babies are self-learners \u2014 they really do know best. By holding a baby\u2019s hands to mobilize him, position and reposition his body, we hinder his natural ability to find balance, sense spatial relations, and judge what he can and cannot do. Better to trust our babies to walk when they are ready, and by doing so encourage mental and physical awareness.<\/p>\n
2. Safety<\/p>\n
Awareness and safety go hand-in-hand, and walking babies makes them less aware \u2014 gives them a false sense of balance and of their abilities \u2014 which can be dangerous. (In Don\u2019t Stand Me Up I describe an unfortunate incident at our home involving my unwitting husband and a friend\u2019s toddler who was accustomed to being walked down steps.) But babies who are given freedom to move and develop in their own way gain a self-knowledge that keeps them safer. Their inner sense of balance and judgment intact, movements are carefully calculated, and they tend to make fewer reckless moves. In a 1971 study on natural gross motor development at the Pikler Institute (as reported in The RIE Manual) researchers described the children\u2019s movements as \u201cwell-coordinated, economical and cautious\u201d. They also noted that \u201cthe children, without exception, attained age-appropriate skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Habits, dependencies<\/p>\n
Walk babies, and they\u2019ll probably want to do it again and again. Not only does this create an unhealthy dependence on an adult for body balancing, it makes a habit of an activity that the baby will likely be much more interested in continuing (and doing far more often) than we are. Babies are extremely fond of repetition. And, personally, I\u2019m not fond of having more situations with babies where I have to say, \u201cNo\u201d. Babies who are not walked or otherwise positioned never ask to be.<\/p>\n
4. Parent\u2019s backache<\/p>\n
Enough said.<\/p>\n
5. Thwarts independent play<\/p>\n
The walking habit creates an unnecessary and unproductive dependency on the adult for entertainment. Engaging the parent to repeat the activity becomes a distraction when the child could be happily working on developing motor skills his way, or engaged in other more educational, creative and exploratory self-generated activities.<\/p>\n
6. Restrictive<\/p>\n
Although we probably believe that our well-intentioned manipulation of a baby is helping him learn to move freely, we are actually restricting him (just as we do when propping him to sit and holding him to stand). Babies need lots of practice moving freely to attain new skills. It is best to encourage that freedom and trust them to be inner-directed. Only babies know what they are ready to do and what they\u2019re working on.<\/p>\n
7. Loss of transitional movements<\/p>\n
Researchers at the Pikler Institute also noted in their observation of the 722 children raised in this model orphanage (the only place that I\u2019m aware of where natural gross motor development has been officially studied) that the children maintained a \u201cstable high activity level during the whole period of learning new motor skills and changed their postures on average of at least once per minute. This indicates that a child restricted from moving freely is deprived of the long hours of exercising in transitional postures before mastering the next developmental skill.\u201d (From The RIE Manual.)<\/p>\n
These wonderful transitional postures are one of the striking differences I\u2019ve seen over the years between babies who are allowed to develop without interference and those who aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
There is an agile 7 month old boy in my new class who spends the majority of the class in perfect straddle splits when he isn\u2019t sitting (a recent development) or scooting across the floor. The parents (neither of whom are dancers, gymnasts, or even circus performers) and I were marveling at him just last week, wondering if, and for how long he will maintain this astonishing flexibility.<\/p>\n
Transitional postures are building blocks, each one having a distinct and valuable developmental purpose for our child. When we, however subtly, nudge our child to sit or walk, we believe we are helping, but the child ends up losing out on experiencing a healthier developmental process which includes the wide array of naturally strength-building postures.<\/p>\n
8. Trust + Mastery = Self-Confidence<\/p>\n
Basic trust in our baby means allowing him to drive his development. When a baby feels our trust and is allowed to experience his appropriate self-chosen struggles and then eventually to own his independent accomplishments (like walking), self-confidence is nurtured. Instead of, \u201cNow I can finally do it without daddy\u2019s hands holding me.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cWow, look what I can do!\u201d<\/p>\n
9. I\u2019m enough<\/p>\n
When we\u2019re dating, everyone wants to know when we\u2019ll be married. Then we get married and it\u2019s, \u201cWhen are you having a baby?\u201d Then, \u201cIs the baby smiling? Sitting? Walking? Talking? When are you having baby number 2?\u201d Why is it so hard for us to appreciate what\u2019s going on right now?<\/p>\n
Babies need to know that they are appreciated, enjoyed and loved for what they are able to do at this moment. Generally, they never need our help for the basics like sitting, standing and walking. Our interference only confuses the process, and in many ways corrupts it. They really don\u2019t need our help, as much as we\u2019re driven to give it. As Magda Gerber writes in Dear Parent \u2013 Caring For Infants With Respect, \u201cIf infants are ready to do something, they will do it. In fact, when they are ready, they have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
9 Reasons Not to Walk Babies Janet Lansbury<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can understand the urge to walk babies. After all, they seem to like it so much. When we help our babies walk, they are gleefully entertained \u2014 enjoying us enjoying them \u2014 while we\u2019re getting a preview of one of life\u2019s major milestones. Sometimes we\u2019re compelled to walk our babies because we think they Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sharings-from-other-mamas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheriechan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}