Now, I guess I am out of the loop – but it is my understanding that baby walkers (those things that you put 5-12 month olds in so they can “walk”) were out of favour. In fact, I thought they were no longer being made or sold in this country anymore. It is my understanding that they are dangerous for kids to be in – and can impede a child’s ability to walk on his or her own. Well, I at least feel that reports that state that they are dangerous was confirmed with to yesterday. We had a 5 month old girl who was in a walker (I think it was an “older” model) and was unattended for a brief period of time – during which she was somehow able to open a door and cruise across the second floor landing (“bad idea” in my book was that this walker was being used on the second floor). Guess where she ended up? At the bottom of the stairs in a heap with a giant haematoma on her scalp. Turns out the poor child sustained a skull fracture and a sub-arachnoid/intraparenchymal bleed. She had to be transferred to the a nearby hospital that has a pediatric neurosurgeon on call – I hope she does OK. Of course the child should have not been left alone but I also have some simple advice: get rid of these things!
Unfortunate that children have to pay for the inattentiveness of their parents.
The “walkers” that sit on saucers and not wheels are just a tad bit safer.
Thinking of the brain it would be much better for the cerebral development to let, even to encourage and see to that the baby crawls on all four around 6 months. This ensures the right and the left hemisphere of the brain to develop and differentiate from each other. Talking to adults who e.g. have LD or sensorimotor related problems usually tell how their parents were so proud of them having not crawled at all, but learned to stand very early against a solid structure.
So WhiteCoat as you mention the price of the inattentiveness of parents, it might also be more serious than only one-off, a whole AD/HD, and the child having inherited the brain problem pays for the lapse of his own brain and that of the parents. With this I do not mean that the parents are free of responsibility, of course not. Accidents happen to the rich and to the poor alike and it is human.
I was a victim of one of these when I was young. Thankfully I only lost two teeth falling down the concrete stairs to the basement. I don’t know about the states, but I do know walkers are illegal in canada
That is so sad, and even sadder is that the kid has to pay maybe for a lifetime for this kind of stupidity.
Hmm….
I had one as a child (I failed to crawl and/or walk until 12+ months) and didn’t have a problem but then I see how this could be very dangerous.
Reader : Where is this “crawling = good for cerebellar development” theory from? Quick Pubmed search reveals locomotion is *associated* w/ better spatial skills and/or memory recall, although this could also mean global accelerated development in all aspects, rather than causality.
A five month old can open a door?? Hope the kid is ok!
Dude, you’re forgetting that when comes to mothering, nothing is ever wrong, mommy’s instinct’s are always the most correct approach to everything, especially if mommy’s “instinct’s” are based on nostalgia and a desire to validate her own own mommy’s parenting.
Hundreds or thousands of serious injuries from walkers cannot hope to stand up to the intuition of the spiritually attuned mother goddesses of American womanhood.
Do you think the story of how the 5 month old who went through a door out into the hallway is a little off.
I cannot imagine a 5 month old opening a door. Impossible. I have seen children in these supports in the past. I don’t really know how long they left the 5 month old alone? hours? Little kids cannot move in these contraptions that well, especially as young as 5 months. I would worry about abuse. Maybe the kid was pushed, dropped, or hit?
The problem is less the walker, than the parents. Leaving children unattended, because ‘the walker makes them safe,’ or whatever other nonsense they tell themselves, is just bad parenting.
Becky and ERPA make some good points about the story not making sense, and raising concerns about abuse.
I agree with the folks that say that a five-month-old can’t open a door. My firstborn had just learned how to hold his head up at that point, and he’s bright.
Well, the door was obviously not shut completely – the kid pushed it open (with the walker I presume) when she walked into it.
My son did everything super early as a baby. He was already trying to walk at 2 months I kid you not. He obviously was unable to do so. He did his best to get there though and successfully began crawling at 5 months. He was walking along furniture at 6 months and oh so frustrated he wasn’t big enough to walk yet, so we got him a walker. He was so happy being able to ‘walk’ and it calmed him down. We live in an apartment on the top floor but we don’t personally have stairs so I felt it was safe for him. He also could never leave the apartment as we bolt the doors at all times we are home.
Walkers aren’t the problem.. stupid inattentive parents are! If we had lived in a house with 2 levels and I let him have a walker, I sure as hell would keep it on the ground floor only!
2 months later, he was able to walk unassisted so it didn’t harm his development at all… and at this point he didn’t even walk the walker anymore.
Praying the new baby doesn’t grow up this fast! A walking 8 month old is NOT COOL!
i have twin girls who love there walkers. they are ll months old and stand up perfectly holding on for about 2 months now. since them being in the walkers they have gotten strong in the legs and now let go of the gate they hold on to and stand on there own for a couple of seconds without wobbling. we have a big house and open area cant just leave them in a playpen all day. they want the area to run. so we gave them the walkers and now they go all over the house as we have blocked certain areas off and picket up things off the floor they they may grab. they have a ball and feel the in dependency that there looking for at there age.
I had twin girls and had bought a couple of walkers. My girls loved them. The key to this is that the parent needs to be there to keep an eye on the child. No brainer!
I never saw any sense in these walkers.
Nature/Evolution made it so that every child learns in his/her own speed how to move.
First rolling, pushing themselves up, lifting the head, than crawling.
This all trains the muscles, the feeling for the own body, how to hold their weight, right balancing.
These walkers are useless, even dangerous in my opinion if the child is left in there too long.
Much muscle and brain workout is lost with these walkers.
Would parents get their baby a wheelchair if the child is healthy? No…but that is just what they do with these walkers. It is a wheelchair for babys.
Most children will not have draw backs in their development if they are in these things only for a short time.
Still it is a manipulation of how things normally work and we do not know what will change in later life because of that.
Just like with the mothers that refused breast feeding in the 60´s and so on because they were told fake milk is better than breast milk…
And now there are tons of studies which show how feeding with breast milk will make children healthier and more intelligent.
These are the cases of *use your brain* ….what can be better than breast milk of the mother for a baby and maybe, maybe mother nature also intended for babys to exercise brain and body through crawling.
When selecting baby furnitures, i always choose the brand with top of the line quality eventhough it costs more.–~