Matthew started walking on 9 November 2008, just slightly before he hit his 13 mths!!!!The first to witness that was my maid, Lilis and she happily told me that he had started walking.
We had all been waiting for this moment to come. Throughout his entire first year, he had not really been much on walker because his second hand walker had 2 wheels off when I received them and he had not been keen to stay confined in them.
I have read that walker does not necessarily speed up the development of baby’s walking, instead it may delay it and accidents are prone to happen as baby may be too eager to move across the house and thus trip over stairs. It is also not wise to start baby on walker while he is still young (while he is in his 4th mth) as it is important to strengthen his thigh muscles first through crawling activities. An exersaucer is thus preferred over babywalker. However, a good and stimulative exersaucer can be really costly even when there is a sales promotion. Hence, we didn’t get that for Matthew as the usage would be pretty short-lived and he would get sick of them in no time.
We left him in his play pen instead, most of the time. The play pen had been a great source of confined play ground for him to explore walking, squatting, crawling etc. We, as parents love it, as he can do whatever he wants inside and it is extremely safe too.
I am happy that he started walking on his own now. I had saved $$$ on babywalker & exersaucer. For parents who believe that babies need walkers to aid in walking , we had just proven it to be folklore.
I have been confined to my pram again :O(. Very soon, I am going to break lose!!!
Perfect my standing pose first before the “Great Unleash of the Wild Cat” :O)
Ivy Junior 
