Walking, but badly

Toddler
#1

Hi,
my 18 month is walking (and beginning to walk fast/run), but in a visibly bad way, the legs movement is not smooth, or shifting between smooth and stift. Sometimes it looks like rolling a square wheel. He falls often stumbles often. When standing, the medial side of his feet are twisting downwards and inwards.

I’m worried it could have been caused when he was about 11-12 months, just beginning to pull himself up, when he was continuously pulled up and held by hands by adults to walk. Practically, he was made to walk before he could stand. He was totally unbalanced, whole body wingling due to yet too week core muscules, and the legs seemed too weak to bear the weight too, feet twisting inwards.
It soon began difficult to stop “helping” him to learn to walk, so we continued…

We’ve been told to wait and see if the feet posture corrects itself, but it’s not much better. And the walking style’s still looking bad, as described above.

Could this have been caused by pulling him up to walk at 11-12 months? Is there anything we could do to help him walk more normally/ smoothly?

Thanks a lot for any clarification or advice in advance! If there’s some info missing, i’ll be happy to supplement it.
Best regards, Petra

#2

Hi Petra,

While I can understand the worry, at 11/12 months, babies are fully capable of bearing weight through their legs and feet even if they aren’t walking just yet so it’s unlikely that caused any harm.

Depending on when he began taking his first steps, he may just need more time to build up the strength, coordination and endurance to have a more fluid gait.

If you are concerned about his balance and think it’s due to instability in his feet/ankles, i would take him to see a local therapist who can evaluate his posture and alignment. If there’s significant instability, orthotics may be a good idea to help improve alignment and balance

#3

I agree with all of this!

1 Like