Teething, Talking and Walking

There is no hard and fast rule which can be laid down regarding the proper age for walking, talking, and teething in babies.

As to walking, parents who eat beyond their needs, making themselves stupid and dull, should not expect to have a child that will walk early in life. It will have a slowly developed nervous system, and this may handicap it for life. An active child, born of active parents who have had some self-control in their early lives, will walk early. Such children may walk at nine months of age. If walking is delayed too long, up to the approach of the second year, there has probably been a little paralysis--infantile paralysis--so light that it has not been noticed, that is retarding the walking in the child.

As to talking, it is governed by about the same principles as walking. Active, bright children, born unincumbered, will talk earlier than sluggish, heavy children. It is usually the small--or what is known as the undersized--child that talks early--at nine months or even earlier. By the end of the first year the child should begin to talk; but, if this has been delayed, the cause may be the same as the cause of delayed walking--a slight paralysis.

As to teething, there is also a great variety in this particular function in babies. Even in the same family the date for the appearance of teeth varies. Usually about the fiifth month the two central lower teeth begin to appear, and then the four upper teeth in the center about the eighth month. From the end of the first year to the eighteenth month the other front teeth follow. At the end of the first year the child usually has six teeth, at eighteen months twelve, at two years sixteen, and at two years and a half, twenty teeth.

If children have trouble at teething time, it is due to overfeeding, which brings on indigestion. If the teeth are slow in developing, there may be a lack of some of the body-building elements in the food that is being used.