How To Teach Your Child To Walk

Exercise is essentially important to the health of an infant. A baby’s first exercise, of course, will be his or her jerking and wiggling motions followed by the ability to roll and kick about when laying down. A baby uses its limbs freely and until a certain age, this is all the exercise that is needed. Eventually, the little one is going to make his or her attempts at walking and it is important that help and encourage your child in healthy, appropriate ways. The products that are designed and marketed to help the child walk can cause a flatness of the chest, confined lungs, a distorted spine or deformed legs if misused or overused. An infant’s bones are soft and pliable and if they are prematurely inserted into products designed to carry the weight of their body there could be negative consequences on their skeletal structure.  Always be careful and closely follow safety guidelines if choosing to use these products. Most children will first start to crawl before they try to lift themselves into their feet with the help of furniture or people. Eventually, they will learn how to balance themselves without holding on to anything and be able to stand on their own. They may return to holding onto furniture as they venture into placing one foot in front of the other. Over time their muscles and bones will strengthen and they will be able to move their own body weight and begin to walk. Even though children will fail over and fail to achieve the skill of walking, they will continue to try. Overall, the best way to teach a child how to walk is to let the child teach themselves.

Otherwise, there are activities you can try to encourage your child to stand and walk:

1. Lap Bounces

You can help your child develop strength in their legs by bouncing them up and down while placing their feet on your legs. Encourage them to bend their knees, a movement that will eventually help them to stand up and sit down on their own.

2. Entice Baby to Stand

Hold interesting and desirable toys or objects above your baby’s head high enough that they have to stand to reach it.

3. Help Them Learn to Sit

Most babies that learn to stand have a hard time sitting down and will cry for help. Instead of picking them up, teach them how to bend their knees to sit. This will also help your child develop confidence in their attempts to stand and walk.

4.  Line Up Your Furniture

Facilitate your child’s interest in pulling themselves along furniture by lining up whatever you can so they can independently cruise farther distances. Remember that once your child can reach new heights and new areas, further baby-proofing of your home may be required.

5. Hold Their Hands

Try holding your baby’s hands and lifting them to their feet. Hang on as they try to explore the ground with their feet and figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.

6. Give Them Time

Never force your baby to stand or walk if they don’t want to. They will develop at their own pace and it is important to avoid instilling fear and apprehension while they are learning to walk.

Nine Ways of Teaching Baby to Talk

1. Respond to Cries

Crying is one of the ways a baby learns to communicate, and in the first year crying is the key communication system. When you respond to your young one’s cries, babies learn that you hear them and they perceive the world as a place where their needs are met, making them feel safer.

2. Talk with Your Baby

It feels quite odd to have conversations with a baby, but as we have already mentioned, they learn to speak through conversations. This is also an important way of teaching babies to talk. The act of conversing tells the child that when he produces sound, he will get a response. If you coo, expect your child to coo right back at you. This is a very simple interaction, and you can help your child practice to structure a conversation. 

3.  Create a Communication-Rich Environment

Your baby will develop receptive communication skills even before expressive skills. In other words, your young one will be able to comprehend what you are telling him even before he is able to speak on his own.  It’s important to raise your baby in an environment that is filled with conversation, as this makes him able to speak naturally. The important thing here is that you don’t have to make the baby speak correctly. When you speak correctly, your baby learns to speak correctly as well.

4.  Correlate Words with Actions

This is one of the best ways to teach babies to talk. For example, if you see your baby touch his feet, take the opportunity to teach him by saying something like “feet.” If the child hears his daddy speaking, you can say “Daddy’s home.” If he becomes excited when the cat comes into the room, you can say “Here’s your pussy cat.” The point is to teach the names by describing the actions.

5. Talk about the Baby’s Actions

Telling a baby what he is about to do helps him understand your language. You can tell the baby, “You are going to clean up” just before a bath, or “It’s time to feed” as you prepare the baby to eat. When changing the baby’s diaper, you can say “You need a diaper change.” This helps the baby to develop his language, and he also learns to understand what he is supposed to do and hence becomes active in that action.

6. Talk about Your Actions

You don’t just talk about the baby’s actions, but your actions as well. Self-talk helps the baby make sense of what is going on around them. You can describe your actions as you relate to the baby. You can say something like “I’m going to put you to sleep now” or “Daddy’s going to feed you today.”

7. Tell Stories and Sing

Stories and songs are an integral part of teaching babies to talk because of their repetitive nature. They teach your child to communicate, and you will find your child producing car engine sounds to tell you that he wants the story of a car. 

8. Read a Lot

Books with colorful photos are great and these don’t have to be cartoons. Look for books that have rich language and varied photos. You can start reading books at any age, and you can easily gauge what sort of books your baby likes and dislikes.

9. Play Word Games

Speaking is more exciting to the child when you make it a game. You can start a “what’s this” game, whereby you ask your kid to name objects, colours, and numbers in your surroundings. You can make the game fun by starting with objects that you know the child already knows, such as cars, and then sneak in new objects and words. With older children, you could have a more complex game of “what happens next.” Tell a story, and then let your child tell you how it ends or what happens next.

We believe parents who have been instructed in early child development are the very best teachers for their own children. 

Little Children Love to Learn

All children love to learn. They can learn absolutely anything that can be taught in an honest and factual way when they are taught in a joyous manner. The younger a child is, the easier it is for the child to learn.
The parent and child together are the most dynamic teaching and learning team. The family is the cradle for intellectual, physical, and social excellence in the child.

Your Child Is Capable of Anything

Most parents do not realize what their young children are capable of. Too often, parents are unaware of the power of stimulation to grow the brain and to give their children an advantage that lasts a lifetime.

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