Milestones---Standing and Walking(Tough ones this time)

Bhavya had been trying to stand by support right from when he was about nine months. He used to hold on to table, sofa, walker etc and walk comfortably by the end of nine months. Now walking independently was not far away. But fate had unpleasant surprises on our way. We waited and waited and waited until he turned 12 months but there was no sign of walking. We were really loosing our patience as everybody from India was asking 'Has he started walking?' and we though he is getting too late. Though he could climb on the sofa, chairs and all just by holding from one place to another. Its our mistake that sometimes we expect a lot much from our children and to even worsen the situation we start comparing them with other children of the same age. The outcome is that we not only stress ourselves but also the child. Sometimes 'take it easy' attitude helps a lot in parenting. I don't mean that we shouldn'd be concerned about our children but the idea is we should not bother about things happening two months early or late, which we know are bound to happen sooner or later.

Then it was our India trip in december and we were very hopeful or rather very sure that he will start walking when he reaches India. But no, that was a very wrong notion we had. Bhavya fell terrebly ill in India and lost almost two pounds by the time we returned back. He has all sorts of infections, cold, cough, fever, dyrhiya and what not. It seemed that he had gone back by two months rather than growing by one month. Walking was just out of question. We returned from India by 6th January. After about a week he was setteled in his own environment or should I say his 'Home'. When he regained some of his strength, though regain of wait would take longer, we started him to practice on walking by holding our hand and not the walker. He used to feel more confident holding his papa or muma's hand. Now Bhavya had competed 15 months and was old enough to walk, we knew that. It took a practice for 3-4 days and he left our hand subconciously and started walking all by himself. Phew!! that is why i called this milestone a tough one, for all of us. But one thing was there he only started it when he knew he won't fell over and once he started walking he did it without fall(fail).