A lovely update from Latte Mum about her son who was a late walker…

Feeling disillusioned and desperate, I wrote this a couple of months ago in the hope I would get some reassurance and support from those who could relate to how I was feeling. Hundreds of comments later, I thought it was time for an update.

At the time of my initial post, my son was 18-months-old and yet to take his first solo step. As many of you will understand, ‘walking’ is a very important milestone in a young child’s life and a highly anticipated moment for said child’s parent. I had started to become a little concerned.

In my heart of hearts I knew there was nothing wrong with my son’s two sturdy legs. He had been up on his feet since he was just a few months old, and had been walking along for the past couple of months if he had something to hold on to. But, to be honest, what I knew in my heart of hearts didn’t really help. I couldn’t help the thoughts that swirled through my head – have I been too affectionate and now he’s afraid to let go, will my little boy ever be able to walk, is he growing normally, is there something more we should be doing.

I felt like everything in my world would be in harmony once I saw him reach this milestone. As his peers started walking one by one around their first birthday, we continued to wait, and encourage, and wait, and try every other trick under the sun.

I had searched the internet for forums, articles and guidance that would help me. I had taken him to our family GP to be assessed. I had chatted to my mummy friends in the hope that one of them could share a happy-ending story with a similar start to mine. I kept hitting dead ends and hearing things that would frighten instead of reassure and it seemed that all I could do was wait.

For the most part, I went about my day with my happy, healthy little toddler in tow; feeling blessed at my good fortune to have him in my life. I wasn’t obsessed with the idea of him walking (even though it probably sounds like it), I just wanted to know that he would be ok and that he could do it eventually.

I’m thrilled to say that last week he started to walk, at the ripe old age of 21 months! He literally just did it in an instant, and then walked around for half an hour like a pro. It was my proudest mummy moment to date and I had to fight back the tears. In that moment I realised he didn’t achieve this feat through anything that we did or didn’t do, he had just decided that today was the day he was happy to let go and have a run around on his own. He hasn’t looked back since, and life has become so much simpler for this heavily pregnant mummy with a {now} walking toddler.

This experience has taught me a few things that I wanted to share. The first is, sometimes you can’t get the answer from anyone but yourself; it’s important to trust your gut instinct but to seek professional advice if you feel you need to. I knew all along that he was ok, but hindsight is a wonderful thing! Secondly, other mums can either be an incredible source of support or they can add more salt to your wound by telling you how advanced/special/capable their own child is (glad to say I had more of the former), so don’t always expect to hear what you want to hear but never be afraid to reach out for help either. Lastly, these little bundles of joy that have come into our lives don’t follow a book, checklist or milestone chart; they are their own free spirits and should be free to grow by their own agenda. No overbearing mothers allowed (major point to self)!

I did want to thank those of you that provided me with invaluable words of support, advice, similar stories and reassurance. It definitely made the wait more bearable, and I’m so glad to be able to let you know that he finally did it!