ORIGINALLY POSTED ON YODELINGMAMAS.COM
****************************************************************************************************
The past three months, my husband and I grew increasingly worried about our son. He had hit the 15-month mark and still wasn’t walking on his own. And not for a lack of trying. For close to three months he’d been able to walk holding our hands—often times just a single finger. But for some reason he couldn’t do more than a few steps on his own before falling to his knees and crying in frustration.
We got ready for his 15-month well-baby appointment by reaching out to friends who had children in physical therapy, researching appropriate developmental milestones and convincing ourselves that there was something wrong. After all, our “worry child” has had his fair share of challenges and this seemed like par for the course with him.
As we were explaining our concerns to the doctor, she had him walk from my husband to me—about 6 steps. And he did it with grace, confidence and pride. Of course.
She suggested using M&Ms to lure him a few steps at a time at home. Her feeling was that it was confidence getting in his way, not a physical problem. Maybe a little incentive was all he needed.
Well, apparently that was just the prescription. You can say what you want about bribery and rewards, but it worked like magic for us. Within 3 M&Ms, he was walking not just a few steps here or there, but everywhere. In our house, those delicious little morsels’ letters now stand for “Mini Miracles”. Bring on the potty training!
Use Your Words