A Little Push for your Baby's First Steps

When Tweety stood up on her own 3 months back, we felt that she would start walking any day now. But whenever it came to moving forward, she would invariably sit down and crawl. We tried holding her hands and making her walk but she never took the step herself. Although she had started moving while holding on to the side of the bed but that was lateral movement.

Few weeks back going around a toy shop (actually a toy library... more on that later) we found an interesting type of walker we were not aware of. It's a push walker, where a child holds on to a handle in standing position and can pushes it to get a hang of walking forward.

Tweety took to it immediately and was happily moving around the house. Then after a week of it's usage she took her first shaky steps :)

I feel a push walker certainly helps a baby realize the possibility of being able to walk straight ahead and thus giving her a feel of walking before she takes her first independent steps.

However, as soon as your baby starts to walk, the walker will lose relevance so it may be a better choice to get it on rent, if possible. If you would like to try a home grown solution for it then, let your baby hold on to a plastic chair and pull from the other end. Slowly baby will herself start pushing the chair.

ELC Push Walker

The walker comes in varieties as cheap as Rs. 400 to as high as Rs. 4000/- for brands like Chicco, ELC. Please remember the walker should have a way to increase friction in the wheels so that baby does not fall by a fast moving walker.

The branded walkers also have lots of bells and whistles attached to keep the baby engaged, however go for a walker where these attachments can be removed, so that baby does not get distracted.

We got the ELC walker on rent and it had a removable ring with lots of buttons, sounds and lights which kept tweety well engaged.

So if your baby is on the verge of walking, then a push walker (or a plastic chair solution ;) ) may just be the push your baby is waiting for.