Chapter 6: Before We Take The First Step
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. ~ George Orwell, “In Front of Your Nose” (1946)
Dropped in mid-journey? Walk Straight is best experienced from the beginning.
It’s tempting to jump straight to solutions, to hurry up and get to the fixing part. That’s how we’ve been trained. But if I skip ahead to a “because I said so” fix, I’d just be yet another voice layering more confusion on top of what got us here in the first place. So before we go forward, let’s return to the beginning to observe how we’ve been shaped, and to recognize the role we’ve played in that shaping.
When babies are born, their bodies are like an orchestra made up of brilliant musicians, an innate repertoire, and a built-in conductor. In the early months, the ensemble begins to explore, the conductor poised, baton in hand, allowing the instruments to find their voices and discover harmony. Yet only too quickly, watching with delight gives way to impatience. We take the baton from the conductor, rush the rehearsal, and skip ahead toward what we view as the grand performance.
Would we be in as big a hurry to get our babies on their feet if we paused to consider:
Their body has 300 soft developing bones.
Feet, ankles, and toes alone make up almost a quarter of an adult skeleton’s 206 bones.
The foot sets the foundation for the ankle, legs, knees, hips, pelvis, spine, and every other part of the skeleton.
All the bones and associated muscles are developing daily based on the body’s positioning, posture, and movement.
The body quadruples in size by the 24th month.
Infant development in the West is usually centered on age-based milestones. Even when comparing parental influence across Western, Eastern, and indigenous cultures, the discussion remains focused on timing and benchmarks. The prevailing conclusion is that “it all evens out” in the end. What we don’t hear about are long-term musculoskeletal outcomes. In my experience, this is where we begin to uncover the missing pieces of the “why are our bodies breaking down prematurely?” puzzle.
Babies are born, and in a blink, convenience and societal pressures come into play. Our lives are so busy. What’s wrong with trying to help things along? If we prop a baby up, they have more access, and we get to experience the first time they sit. If we can offer them amusement while encouraging them to stand and walk, we increase the odds of seeing them stand and walk unassisted the first time, etc. It’s fun! It’s joyful! I’m sure there are as many motivations as there are people.
In our effort to support their development and offer opportunities for recreation and independence, we use walkers, jumpers, carriers, and play centers that require the torso to be over the feet. But what if, by speeding things up, we’re planting the seeds of future dysfunction? When stripped down to essential facts, simple logic offers extraordinary clarity. Hip development is the cornerstone of bipedal posture, yet our habit is to place babies on underdeveloped “sea legs” beneath an unprepared torso.
Amplifying this overlooked stage of development, the International Hip Dysplasia Institute warns that overusing baby devices, like carriers, jumpers, exercisers, walkers, and molded seating, places hips in an unhealthy position, especially when used for extended periods. “Any device that restrains a baby's hips and legs in an unnatural position,” they write, “can risk abnormal hip development.”
In the United States, a 2018 study published in The Journal of Pediatrics reported that between 1990 and 2014, over 230,000 children under 15 months were treated for walker-related injuries, more than 90% involving the head and neck. In response, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advised parents to discard walkers in favor of stationary activity centers and other alternatives. Canada took a stronger stance, banning the manufacture and sale of baby walkers in 2004 after national injury surveillance data revealed similarly high rates of harm.
While the AAP’s recommendations and Canada’s ban helped reduce immediate injury risk, their ongoing support of stationary activity centers, tethered swings, and baby jumpers diluted the warnings from the International Hip Dysplasia Institute and failed to address long-term musculoskeletal consequences.
That blind spot has had repercussions, as the continued endorsement of this upright baby gear by the American Academy of Pediatrics has led parents to assume that these devices are not only harmless, but a helpful way to gain some hands-free time. As a California-based pediatrician, Dr. Tiffany Fischman pointed out, “People think they are cute and fun… and theoretically anything you can do to put your kid in something to keep them occupied while you’re trying to get things done is a great thing.” Cute and convenient, yes. Harmless? Not so much.
There are warnings about choking and falling on many baby activity toys, but nary a single label that mentions future joint or spine issues. I don’t think that’s because the risks aren’t real; I think it’s because we haven’t connected the dots. We have a history of missing what is right under our noses when it isn’t something we want to see. Activity toys are extremely convenient, they are stimulating, and babies love them, which makes us happy. Am I overreacting? I don’t think so. If the risks were openly acknowledged, we’d see bold warning labels and tighter regulations. But instead, we see something else: a multi-billion-dollar industry built to manage the consequences. The warnings may be missing from the packaging, but the ripple effects are everywhere.
Babies adapt brilliantly, but not always beneficially. They’re born with blueprints for efficient movement, but also with a remarkable capacity to compensate. When rushed into sitting, standing, or walking before their bones, joints, muscles, and intrinsic balance systems are ready, their bodies will find a way to comply. But the strategy won’t be efficient, and it won’t be neutral. If we repeatedly prop them up with legs splayed at the hips or encourage them into weight-bearing positions too soon, we bypass the natural progression of development. Instead of organizing around the body’s innate center of balance and function, the Medial Line (ML), they adapt around what’s being asked of them. Balance develops from the outside in, rather than from the inside out. The result is a skewed foundation, from the very beginning.
In our understandable exuberance, we don’t just hijack their physical development; we also set a pattern. A pattern of interference, projection, and expectation for our children to meet our needs, on our timelines, instead of their own. Even though we all acknowledge the tortoise as the wise winner in Aesop’s fable, our encouragement inadvertently aligns our babies with the hare. We rush them to fulfill our excitement for their growth. They are excited because we are excited. They aren’t in a hurry; we are. They don’t have a timeline. We are the timeline. We’d do well to take a cue from the tortoise and let the unfolding happen in its own time.
If we truly honored the design of the developing body, what would that look like? It would mean keeping babies on their backs, tummies, or in our arms until they can lift their heads, push up, and roll over on their own. Their muscles would grow strong and supple as they wiggle and stretch, on their terms. We would not place them into a sitting position prematurely; we’d let them discover sitting once their spine, torso, pelvis, and legs were ready to support it. Babies are instinctual learners and brilliant mimics. They will figure it out.
In no time, their body’s readiness catches up with their brain’s curiosity to explore, and crawling and/or scooting would emerge. Ideally, they would love crawling and not be in a rush to stand. Crawling is spectacular for the brain and body; both sides of the brain work in harmony, connections opening, advancing intellectual and physical progress. The innate relationship between the pelvis and ribcage stabilizes the torso as the neck gains strength, working against gravity. The arms and shoulders move in synergy with the legs and hips while the hands and wrists gain flexibility and strength.
Muscles learn to support the spine and meet gravity’s pressure without compression, allowing the joints to remain fluid and mobile. It begins when babies move their arms and legs freely in space, on their backs. Then, on their knees in a quadruped position. Each stage builds toward the complexity of standing. Once they’ve built the necessary strength and coordination in the Medial Line (ML), pulling up to standing would occur. The baby’s feet, preferably bare, would activate this core pathway, sending signals through the body’s internal balance systems. Walking would follow the first time one foot was placed successfully in front of the other.
A fully integrated, dynamic system emerges when babies reach milestones through one natural movement, building on the next, with each subsystem developing in conversation with the others. But after decades of interference, getting out of the way takes curiosity and an openness to try something different.
In earlier chapters, we began observing how we respond to common standing cues, small but revealing windows into our current habits. Even those early shifts in awareness make a difference. That’s how we begin to peel the proverbial onion. Whether you’re three months or eighty-three years old, the body responds when we stop overriding its intelligence and start working with it. Because the real race isn’t about who walks first. It’s about who can still dance, climb, or hike decades later. Free of pain, free of hardware, and full of life.
Do you have any observations or stories you’d like to add? Please drop down to the comments and share! XxD
Sometimes, all it takes is a shift in perspective or a nugget of information considered in a new light to spark the ah-ha moment that changes everything! Subscribe for free to get a new chapter delivered to your inbox each week!