Walker

Elena was introduced to a forward walker when she was XX months old. She had been standing up and cruising a little using furniture. Her balance was nonexistent, and when she fell, it was like a tree—forward, sideways, backwards. She also did not know how to bend her legs to absorb a fall or to come down slowly. At first, she did not like the walker at all, but it didn’t take long for her to figure out how to push it. She fell a lot, which was rough, since she’d get tangled in the metal. Turns were very difficult, so we started on short flat distances, which mainly meant we’d bring her to the hospital when I’d work on the weekend and she’d walk part of the hallway. After XX months of use, Elena became pretty adept at using her walker on a flat surface. She still could not do any sort of terrain (grass, gravel) or any kind of incline/decline. Our current issue with her walker is she doesn’t like to walk with it—she tends to break into a run. This might seem good, or funny, but given the fact that she always wants to be on her toes, running with a walker is counterproductive—she leans into it for balance while she runs on her toes. For easy (smooth, flat) terrain, we now use her dolly stroller, as she can’t run with it (she’ll fall on her face if she does).