I gave birth 11 months ago. The baby phase swooshed so fast, I have whiplash. One minute, I'm carrying my newborn home and adjusting to being a mother of two, and the next minute, I find myself pre-planning for his first birthday party.

While we enjoy these big milestones a baby goes through and we watch them grow before our very eyes, nothing says “not a baby anymore” quite like hitting the walking milestone. 

My baby was curious about walking as soon as he could crawl. We all knew he was going to walk early. I was personally excited because we haven't really had an early walker in the family, even though all the children hit their milestones within the right time frames. 

However, we hit a little delay as we moved continents to stay with family and live a completely different life than the one he was used to. He had to learn to crawl around an unfamiliar space and get used to it before he could find his independence and comfort in the new environment. 

A month and a half later, my baby is ready to resume his curious explorations. He woke up a week ago and just chose to walk. Not independently yet, but every time we tried to put him down, he would hold on and walk instead. He is also the type of child who has a far greater image of his capabilities than the reality we live in. He refuses the walker because he believes he can walk behind it and push. He doesn't want to walk alongside furniture because he would rather put one foot in front of the next as he walks forward. 

It is important to support a child to explore his curiosity and allow the muscles to achieve what they are pushing for. He is at the stage where all the muscles in his body are pushing him to walk, and we have to allow nature to take its course. I have to remind myself, however, to approach the issue cautiously and with foresight. For instance, a lot of baby specialists often recommend for a child to learn walking barefoot, but because of my son's type of feet and the type of floor we have, I deduced that a flat sole shoe made with a comfortable hugging material would actually help him stabilise more than if he was walking barefoot.

We also take turns helping him walk about and offering him supportive toys that encourage walking. I personally believe in infant massages and there is a woman who performs traditional massages for my children. As soon as she touched his feet, he cried very loudly. The experienced veteran told me that the baby was holding on to a lot of pain in his feet because they were getting ready for walking. She knowledgeably said that he would walk much faster when she got rid of all the tension in his feet.