Category Archives: Walking

Walking development and late walking

Boomer 2 in 1 Balance Bike – The coolest wheels around

30 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in Baby and toddler products, Walking

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I’ve been looking at balance bikes for a while.

I was completely ignorant as to what balance bikes actually were until I had a baby. The concept of a bike without pedals didn’t make sense to me. It wasn’t until I saw a toddler scooting about on one, to then move gracefully (and easily) to a bike without stabilisers that I realised balance bikes were the way forward.

I’ve always been a big fan of wooden toys so, initially, when looking at potential balance bikes for my three year old, I was drawn to the wooden ones. But then I saw this review of a Boomer Bike at Not Another Mummy Blog.

Boomer Balance Bike

Continue reading »

Running down hills – hypermobility loses again

14 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by in Walking

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Hills

I still find it hard to believe that Frog only started walking a little over a year ago, aged two years old. When I look at her now, I realise just how far she has come.

Moving to a new area has meant joining a completely new hospital system. Frog still has ongoing issues with her hypermobile joints – issues that may never go away completely. For example, she needs hospital-issue insoles in her shoes to correct her lack of instep and relieve the pressure on her knees and hips. In the future, she may need more physiotherapy treatment and – if she still suffers from hyper lax joints when she’s older – she may experience added discomfort during pregnancy. People with hypermobility are also sometimes prone to early arthritis, which is a bit of a bummer. (There’s more information about hypermobility and some of the symptoms on the NHS Choices website.) Continue reading »

Scooter: 1, Hypermobility: 0

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Walking

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Hypermobility toddler

This is my daughter just before her second birthday. At nearly two years old, she couldn’t walk.

She has hypermobile joints – although we didn’t know it when this photo was taken. We had yet to go through physio and find out that insoles in her shoes would help her. We had yet to see her run or jump in puddles. We had yet to know that she would face the battle to walk so valiantly and come out the other side grinning. Continue reading »

Hypermobility – reaching the top of the hill

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Walking

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Hypermobility

My daughter climbed a hill today. Not just any old hill, but a really long, really steep one.

This is a big deal because, just over a year ago, she couldn’t walk.

In May last year we found out my toddler had hypermobile joints. Put simply, we were told her joints were too flexible to support her weight. Imagine a pipe cleaner or elastic band trying to hold up a marble, and you get the picture.  Continue reading »

Walking with clouds

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Walking

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Walking. It’s such a simple activity, something so many of us take for granted. A nice walk on a summer’s day, a gentle stroll along a beach, a hurried run up a flight of stairs.

The pace that we travel through the world is set by how we walk, changing as we age. Those first bumpy steps that mark a baby’s transition to toddlerhood. The slowed shuffle of an elderly person wandering down a supermarket aisle. That gentle placing of each foot in front of the other is an action we don’t even think about. We just do it.

Unless we can’t. Continue reading »

A toddler shopping trip

04 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Play, Walking

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Toddler shopping tripIf I blink, I’m sure I’ll see my newborn baby staring back at me again. At the very end of June, my tiny, mewling, red and wrinkled little bundle will turn three years old. Three years old. Suddenly that’s so grown-up.

She proved just how grown-up she’s becoming by insisting on taking her own bag, purse and baby to the shop in her quest for chocolate this afternoon. As well as the pram she pushed all the way there, she had a card to post in the postbox. She took her responsibilities incredibly seriously, even asking me to put her hair into bunches so she could impress any passers-by who might stop to chat. Continue reading »

Living with a hypermobile toddler – a year on

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Walking

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Hypermobile toddlerThis time last year I was panicking about the fact my 19 month old wasn’t walking. At all. After a referral to the hospital for a potential issue with her hips and feet, we were given a bit more of an explanation. At the time, the specialist we saw explained she was “too bendy“. Now, that “too bendy” has been put into a word I’m very familiar with: hypermobility. I am living with a hypermobile toddler.

The picture above was taken around a year ago. Frog’s feet naturally fell at right angles to her body. Her ankle joints were so flexible that her feet caved in, so she was trying to balance on the side of each foot. It’s not surprising she couldn’t stand up on her own. Continue reading »

Signed off

29 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Walking

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“Is she walking properly yet?” My friend asked me this weekend. She hadn’t seen my two year old wobbly footed daughter since March, when she was still resolutely stuck on her behind.

When Frog toddled and then ran into the room, my friend’s question was answered. “Wow,” she said, “It’s like she’s a different child”.

Just seven months ago my daughter was a toddler of the non-toddling variety. We were in the midst of appointment after appointment to get to the issue behind her inability to walk. Hip dysplasia was ruled out, hypermobility was ruled in, along with flat feet. Continue reading »

From crawling to flying

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Family, Play, Walking

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This time last year, my child wasn’t walking.

We had yet to face that dreaded day when we would be hurried from a health visitor to a doctor to a hospital, to be told our bendy, non-walking 20 month old may have something wrong with her hips.

I was concerned, but not overly. Whenever anyone commented on the fact that my baby (who still very much looked like a baby, rather than a toddler) was slow to “get going”, I just shrugged my shoulders and replied that she’d, “do it when she’s ready”.

It would be six months before we’d be told she’d likely need physio throughout her childhood, that her fleet were “very flat”, that it would be a waiting game before we knew if she suffered from full-blown Hypermobility Syndrome, or if she was just a “bit too bendy”.  Continue reading »