One of the most exciting experiences I’ve had throughout my son’s life has been watching his gross motor skills develop. My husband and I are both incredibly active and want to instill healthy physical habits in our son as early as possible. Since babies learn from observing and mimicking, especially from the people they are around the most (like parents, siblings, caretakers), my husband and I include him in almost everything we do. I think this is why our son walked at 10 months and 1 day old.

Our son is an only child, he is a busy, active boy, and is incredibly independent (I can say this knowing he needs us but he also lets us know that he can do things on his own). Having a first-born walk at 10 months, I’ve been told, is really early. I want to share with you some things my husband and I did to help our son walk. A couple of disclaimers before you continue reading:

1. Each child is different. Jason showed an interest and physical ability in walking, so we nurtured it. If he would have shown a preference to crawling, we would have nurtured that too.

2. This isn’t a competition or race on how early you can get a child to walk. I know a few people who have babies that didn’t walk until they were 14 – 15 months old. That’s completely fine and NORMAL.

3. We used a lot of purposeful play to get our son to walk. Purposeful play is intentional play between a parent (or caretaker) and child to support development and learning. As you read, you’ll see those purposeful play moments.

At 10 months and 1 day old, my son took his first steps. He is an only child and I’ve been told this is incredibly early for a first born. Jason never really crawled, he was determined to walk and walk he did. Here are a couple of things we did to help with walking:

1. We put his back against sturdy furniture for support, so he had to walk or fall forward. I liked propping him up against the couch, dresser, and crib. I placed pillows all around him so as he lost his balance, he fell into cushy pillows and then worked to wriggle free.

2. We held something in front of him that he really wanted to have him reach and take a step forward. For our son it was (I’m ashamed to say) our cellphone.

3. We did a lot of ping pong between Mama and Dada for walking. What this means is both my husband and I would sit a few feet away from each other and Jason would be in the middle of us. While Jason was holding onto one of our hands for support, we would start helping him walk, and then let go of his hands while he was walking toward the other parent. The other parent would catch him, then turn him around, get him to start walking, then let go. Back and forth like a little ping pong ball. He definitely fell forward (we obviously caught him before he faceplanted) and sometimes he got a little momentum where he could take a couple of wobbly steps before toppling into us.

4. Something else we used to support Jason was a Radio Flyer Car walking toy. This was a gift from his grandparents and is incredibly sturdy compared to other walking toys. The Radio Flyer Car has a handle on the back and is structurally designed very well. When he put his full weight on it, it didn’t pop up or make him fall forward. He pushed this car around ALL the time and gained strength in his legs.

5. We did assisted walking by holding his hands above he head as he toddled around the house. We basically have a permanent curve in our back from leaning over to help him walk. Walking is literally all he wanted to do.

6. Jason started holding onto our walls for support as he was walking. He created his own walking route around our house by scaling the walls, grunting and screeching with glee, and exploring without the need of our hands. As he gained more strength, endurance, and confidence he started crossing hallways – something I like to call “puddle jumping” from one wall to another wall. It was a short distance to cross the hallway and yet seeing him do it over and over again was precious.

I think our son took about 2 months to be really steady when walking on his own – he fell and tumbled even though we were right there. Things happen when tiny humans are trying to walk. As long as you are there and are supporting them, they’ll amaze you with their physical abilities. We made sure he has great grips on his feet – things like socks and pajamas with grips on the bottom and wearing shoes in the house. If you are looking for things like this, checkout my Products and Gear page, the anti-slip rubber sole shoes were the best.

As my son gained more confidence and endurance with walking, I started adding challenges and new experiences. A big one was walking outside – the outdoors is an excellent training ground for babies learning to walk. The ground surface is uneven! They learn about bumps and dips as they walk. There are gradual increases and decreases in the outdoors so learning how to climb a little hill and then walk down the same hill is invaluable! Walking around inside is definitely a milestone (not one easily ignored) AND being able to navigate the outdoors is another milestone too (one that is often overlooked).

As we went outside, we got out Jason’s bubble lawn mower (literally one of the most used gifts he has received to date) to see if he would walk with his lawn mower. This kid… just cracks me up. He pushed that lawn mower every chance he could: through the sunny days, windy afternoons, rainy mornings, and winter season, Jason lawn mowed. Our neighbors recognized exactly who he was because of his lawn mower. A simple, functional toy like this has brought my son so much joy and helped him gain strength and endurance to walk huge distances as a toddler.

Something else to think about, babies and toddlers have their entire world in front of them. Well, what about the world behind them? Another skill I added in with my son was walking backwards! I started doing this by actually walking backwards myself and making a beeping noise like a big truck going in reverse. I just did a couple of steps backwards, beeping, and then walked forward while making a vroom vroom noise like a car. I did this hundreds of times – just showing him I can back up and go forward with corresponding noises. After a couple of weeks, he caught onto this. At first, when he started walking forward he would make the vroom vroom noise, like I had. Then one day, we were walking outside and I started walking backwards with a beep beep beep and he did it too! He fell over, then I fell over with him and we laughed. After that, he would back up with a beep beep beep, then race forward with a vroom vroom! We did this together constantly and had SO much fun with it. Something this simple is purposeful play and it doesn’t even seem like it!

One more layer we added into both walking forward and backwards was music. My husband and I both use Spotify for our music and podcast streaming and have found a lot of really great baby and toddler music on there. A couple of songs we played while doing these activities with our son to connect physical ability to language were:

• Walking, Walking by Old Town School of Folk Music

• Sandpiper by Music Together

• Five Little Ducks by Super Simple Songs

As you can imagine, all of this snowballs into the physical ability of running. I am still shocked that my son figured out how to run at a really early age too. Yet, I shouldn’t be surprised because he used his tree trunk baby legs ALL the time, he had the confidence, and we gave him the environment to succeed.

I’ll tell you, the first time my son took off running, he ran down our very steep, paved driveway and my little human was SO FAST and SO BALANCED. He didn’t fall flat on his face and injure himself and he didn’t wait for anyone to run with him. He just bolted with the biggest smile on his face and the cutest laugh ever. He experimented with his body, he took risks, and he was insanely successful. My thoughts on this… umm.. what…? my son can run?! He can run at 16 months old?! When is he supposed to be able to run, how did he do that, is this going to be his new favorite thing? Mind blown.

When my son was about 18 months old, we took a road trip down to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. He had built up enough strength and endurance that we could take him hiking with us. I had the Baby Bjorn baby carrier for him which we used on and off but he actually hiked with us, at the slowest pace ever yet we made progress! The path for him was very uneven, it had tree roots, rocks, and dirt on it. There were inclines and declines and he navigated them with our help. On our last big hike there, he hiked almost three-quarters-of-a-mile that with a pretty steady incline before he was tuckered out. Pretty amazing for an 18-month-old!

Now at 2-years-old, my son will walk and intermittingly run from our house to our local park which is about 1 mile away. Then once he is at the park, he will run around, climb, swing, crawl, and do all other toddler things. Sometimes he will walk or intermittingly run part of the way home. So if you think about how many steps that is for a little, little person… it’s a TON and almost like his own baby marathon. Yet he has the strength, endurance, and ability to do it every day! We have intentionally placed a high value on movement, endurance, and being outside. All of which has played a huge role in his ability to do these things.

Again, adding in that music layer with running for our son was really helpful too. If you are looking for another way to connect physical activity to language (super simple purposeful play), here are some song recommendations:

• The songs mentioned above for walking are great for running

• Run Baby Run by Caspar Babypants

• The Run Stop by The Funky Monkeys

Okay, one more layer to this (I’m sure your mind is spinning with all of the layers), is imitating animal movements to support walking and running. This is really easy to do, especially when reading with your child or being outside because you can pull from what you are seeing or already talking about. Do you have a book with a chicken in it? Walk like a chicken?? Make a funny chicken noise, flap your arms like a chicken, and walk around being a chicken! Alice Schertle, author of Little Blue Truck series, has awesome artwork for farm animals and hens who walk and run around. If you are short on ideas, I bought these Animal Action cards that had a ton of really great animal movements to use. Run Fast Like a Cheetah, Walk Like a Chicken, Walk Slowly Like a Turtle, and many more. I love these and so does my son.

I want to tie these physical skills into the communication we now have with our child. We can talk to our son and say “we are going outside to walk” and he knows what we mean. I can tell him we need to find our shoes to go for a walk and he knows what I mean. I can say that we are getting coats on to go outside and walk and he knows what I mean. I can ask him if wants to go running and the response is ALWAYS an enthusiastic YEAHHH!!! and he starts running right away. I can also connect with the music he associates with these activities. The Run Stop songs is great in teaching the word and action of stopping. I mean… that is so helpful is SO many situations, especially to keep him safe.

I can now talk to my son and ask him to “back up.” This works really well in a variety of situations. Do I need Jason to back up from an edge or something unsafe? Yes, “Jason, back up please.” Do I need him to let go of the baby gate and move out of the way? Yes, “Jason let go and back up please.” If he is standing in front of the door that we need to open to go outside, “Jason, back up so we can go outside.” He completely understands these requests and he knows how to do it himself. I am just amazed at how showing him something physically, making it fun, and tying it to our communication has helped his development, saved us many power struggles, and allowed him more independence.

To summarize, because I shared a lot of layers, here are some ideas to purposefully play with your child so they can learn how to walk and run:

• Start somewhere, anywhere. Just start and see what works and what doesn’t work. 

• Find supportive props that encourage muscle development, strength, and endurance for your child.

• Use the right clothing - grippy socks, shoes, and even pajama feet are a must.

• Make it fun by using toys, books, and music. 

• Get outside! You can’t build these skills with screen time… ditch it. This is so much more fun anyways.

• Bundle physical movement with your words so your child can link language with movement. They understand more than you know. 

• Be consistent! Repetition is key. 

• Allow your child to take some risks. This one is the hardest but you have to do it. Walking and running means independence for your child - they have to test boundaries and take risks to learn. Let them.

On a personal note, writing this blog has been so much fun for me. I got to revisit my journal entries from this time, look back at videos I haven’t watched in a while, and talk with my husband about this season of life. I have so much pride for my little bear cub and how my husband and I have been raising him. The next blog post in this series will be available on April 7th. Thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments!