- As an occupational therapist and mom,
I absolutely love baby push walkers.
So you might also know these as baby activity walkers
or baby stand walkers.
What's great about baby push walkers is
they give babies the confidence
to start walking independently.
Often babies are really happy to cruise
along furniture or lounges, but lack the confidence
to move off the lounge or furniture and start to walk.
But when they're provided with the baby push walker,
they have that confidence to let go of the lounge
and start walking around independently.
Having that time to walk around independently
using a baby push walker means that they're going
to further develop their walking skills
and the muscles required to walk,
as well as their balancing skills
in walking and in standing.
In addition to increasing your baby's confidence to walk,
it also provides an opportunity to work
on their fine motor skills
if it has that activity panel at the front.
When you're looking at baby push walkers,
you will notice that there are two different types
of baby push walkers, wooden ones and plastic ones.
So in this video, we're going to cover
the pros and cons of each to help you decide
which baby push walker you wanna purchase
for your little one.
It's important to note
that baby push walkers are different to baby walkers.
I personally don't recommend the use of baby walkers
because they have been associated
with risks of developmental delays and safety concerns.
If you want more information about that,
you can click on the video link above
or in the description box below.
Before we cover the pros and cons,
make sure you click on that free PDF document
in the description box below
which covers the developmental milestones
you can be expecting for your little one
in their first year of life.
This will give you an invaluable piece of mind
as you'll know when to be expecting certain skills,
and when to be concerned.
Also, if you wanna make parenting significantly easier,
make sure you start now by subscribing to my channel
and hitting that bell
where you'll learn the tips and tricks
I've learned over the last 10 years,
practicing as a pediatric occupational therapist
and being a mom to two children.
Firstly, let's talk about
when baby push walkers can be used by your little one.
If the push walker comes with an activity panel like this,
and it's detachable,
you can actually place these on the ground
in front of your baby during tummy time.
And it will provide them with some motivation
because it sings lots of songs and it lights up.
So it gives them some motivation in tummy time.
And then as they learn to sit up,
you can place it back into the walker.
And then when they're sitting, they're starting to interact
with this activity board in sitting.
If you have a wooden one,
then you would just do it in sitting
and have your baby sitting in front of it
and interacting with it.
But you wanna make sure that the activity panel
is in the front of the walker, not at the rear,
'cause that makes it a bit difficult to breach
for the little one.
Now, your baby will start to use the push walker
as an actual push walker.
So to help them walk around independently,
when they're able to cruise along furniture
and starting to stay in independently
for a short period of time.
So this generally happens
at around nine to 12 months of age.
So with plastic push walkers, there are two different types.
The first one is a plastic push walker
which has an activity panel on the front.
And the second one is a plastic push walker
which is a three in one.
So it has that activity panel on the front.
It acts as a baby push walker,
and it also has the ability to convert
into a stationary play step table
for your little one to use.
So the pros of plastic push walkers
is they are extremely cheap and lightweight.
And because they're so lightweight,
your baby's gonna be easily able to negotiate corners
and turn around which is really important
when they're using it to walk around.
They also have that activity panel at the front
which is often able to be removed
and placed on the floor for tummy time
and when they're in sitting.
And that activity panel has lots of different music
and lots of different noises it makes,
so animal noises, and it also lights up
and your baby can interact with it
to develop their fine motor skills.
Baby push walkers that are plastic
also have the ability to adjust the speed of the wheel.
So they generally have two different settings.
So when your baby's first learning to walk,
you put it on the lowest setting.
And that just means that it's harder to push.
So it's not gonna roll away on them as easily.
And then they also have the ability,
some models to fold their legs, which means
that it takes up less space when you're trying to store it.
And it's also easily transportable.
And the added benefit is that some of these models
have inbuilt motion sensors.
So when your baby starts walking and starts to play music
and light up to provide some motivation for your little one.
So the cons of plastic push walkers is that
because they are so lightweight,
they do tend to run away on little ones
when they're first learning to
pull themselves up from the ground into standing.
So when they do that and they need a lot of support
to get up into standing, they generally tip the walker over.
So you do need to be there to support your baby
when they're doing that movement
and getting stronger in that position.
And the other thing is because it's so lightweight,
and if it doesn't have that ability
to change the speed of the wheels,
the wheel speed can just pick up.
And then the walker just rolls away from your little one
and they will fall over.
Also, the models that have activity tables
so you convert from a push walker to an activity table.
Those tables are really unsteady because again,
they're so lightweight.
So your baby needs to be really confident in standing.
So they're not needing to get support
from that table to maintain that position.
If they are, they're just going to
tip that table right over.
Because plastic push walkers are so lightweight,
and they have that risk of running away
on little kids when they're pushing it
and also pulling themselves up into tipping over.
They are generally better to be used on carpeted flooring
rather than tiles or wooden flooring
just because it gets more traction
when they're on carpeted flooring.
And then they're less likely to run away
on your little one, and also tip.
But in saying that once your little one
is able to walk around quite well
using the push walker and not needing a lot of support,
you're more than able to move the baby
onto using the push walker
when they're on tiles and on floorboards,
my children cope totally fine.
So if you are looking at purchasing a plastic push walker
for your little one,
I find the Vtech sit-to-stand push walker the best.
And that is because it has that adjustable wheel speed.
It also has the ability to fold the legs,
and it's relatively cheap.
So in Australia you can buy it for $65,
in the US it's around $45.
Now let's cover wooden push walkers.
So there are two different types of wooden push walkers.
You have the really basic wooden push walkers
which are generally really quite simple.
And they generally come with blocks in the front of here
that you would use at another time.
And then you have the more complex push walkers
which have an activity panel on it.
So it's at the front or at the back.
The front ones are better because it's easy for little one
to reach when they're in sitting.
But some of them have them at the back.
Now, when we're looking at wooden push walkers,
the pros of these is that with the lightweight ones,
so ones like this, they are really easy
for your baby to move around and negotiate corners.
Whereas the ones with the activity panels,
they tend to be a lot heavier
and really difficult to move and negotiate corners.
Now, because the wooden push walkers
with the tray are extremely light,
it does mean that there is a risk
that they might run out from underneath your baby or tip.
But really all baby walkers are likely to tip
when your baby's first learning to do a sit to stand,
so they pull themselves up from the floor into standing.
But because it is lightweight, but it has that tray,
I generally just put a weight in the front.
So I've used two kilos or rice bags or a kilo of rice bags.
And here I've just got brown sugar,
but that just weighs it down a bit.
So it makes it a bit more stable in the beginning
stages when your little one's first learning to walk.
But as they get more confident,
you can just remove the weight at the front,
and then they'll start to put in teddies or blocks
or cars or dinosaurs and move them all around the house.
Now, the walkers with the trays are significantly cheaper
than the heavier wooden walker.
So the ones with the trays,
in Australia you can buy from around $60
and in the US it's around $45.
Whereas the heavier ones you can purchase in the Australia
for around $100, and in the US it's around $65.
Wooden push walkers also tend to have rubber trimmed wheels,
which will protect your flooring.
So when we're thinking
about the cons of wooden push walkers,
if you've got those really heavy ones,
they can only go in a straight line
and then your baby's not able to turn them.
So you're going to have to pick them up
and turn them around.
And if you've got a really compact house
with not much space, then that's probably not
an ideal walker for your little one to use
whereas the smaller ones, your baby's going
to be able to easily move these
around the house and negotiate those corners.
The other con from wooden push walkers
is that they are not able to be collapsed or folded
when they're not in use for storage.
So that might take up a bit more space.
And if you do get a simple wooden push walker,
it doesn't have that activity panel.
So it's purely just a push walker.
If you do wanna buy a wooden push walker, I would lean
towards buying the more basic push walkers
that just come with the block
thus the push walkers that have that activity panel
because I find that when you're really wanting your baby
to use a push walker is to work on their walking skills.
So if they can't push it or turn it around corners,
they're going to get extremely frustrated.
Whereas the lighter weight one, which is that really simple,
basic wooden push walkers that come with blocks,
they're able to move that freely around the house.
And you can just put a weight in it initially
so it doesn't roll away on your little one
when they're first learning to walk.
So those are the two different types
of push walkers you can get.
Personally, I prefer the wooden push walkers
with the simple blocks in it.
And that is because I think that it has longevity.
So basically my two and four year old continue to use it.
So it's lasted for a number of years where
the Vtech was suitable for the first two years.
And then they're no longer interested in it.
I hope you found this video extremely helpful.
Now you know which one to purchase for your little one.
Don't forget to click on that free PDF document
in the description box below.
And hopefully I'll see you next week
where I'll share more parenting tips and tricks.
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