First steps
After learning how to sit around the sixth month, the next sixth months your little one will start crawling, standing up and when physically and mentally ready will make the first steps on its own. It is usually around the first birthday.
Comparisons with other children are misleading, since the age for independent walking ranges from 10 to 18 months.
Some kids may take even longer to start walking on their own.
Babies learn to walk by gripping the ground with their toes and using their heels for stability. This helps develop the muscles needed for walking and is ideally done without socks or shoes.
In the first-steps stage, children should walk barefoot indoors and wear lightweight shoes with soft soles made from natural materials when outside. They need to walk over safe terrains to protect their feet from injuries and on surfaces with grass and sand to stimulate the receptors and the muscles in the feet.
The small feet are chubby and have fat all over - on the arch, on the midfoot, at the toe area, around the ankle. The fat pads protect the little feet from injuries because toddlers are supposed to go barefoot naturally.
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Flat feet are natural for toddlers
The arch is the lower middle part of the foot, which under normal circumstances is curved for grown-ups.
In toddlers, the feet are flat during the first-steps stages. The arch is formed later by the age of 5-7 and continue to develop in puberty, as the body grows.
As the child starts to walk, the fat pad that protects the feet, begins to melt.
Training of the feet, especially by foot gymnastics and going barefoot on varying terrain can facilitate the formation of arches during childhood.