What is your reaction when you see a baby crawling? For most of us it would be delight or pride, knowing that the infant was well on its way to learning to walk. For someone in the Middle Ages, they would have said the child was ‘kittening’, a phrase that dripped with disapproval at such a display of animalistic behaviour, however charming an expression we may find it today. Parents were encouraged to avoid such base and embarrassing displays by helping their infants to progress from swaddling to an upright stature and the more dignified state of walking as quickly as possible. Many were happy to do so for practical as well as moral reasons, given the cold floors and multiple hazards of letting a child crawl around the average medieval household.

His idea that children needed correction from their imperfect natural state to attain physical and moral uprightness persisted for a long time, and emphasised discipline and Christian education alongside physical development. In the late 17th century, French obstetrician François Mauriceau noted that a baby “must be swaddled to give his little body a straight figure, which is most decent and convenient for a man, and to accustom him to keep on his feet, for else he would go upon all fours as most other animals do”. Many types of contraption were used to assist in this process.

Simple wooden walking frames were popular and have been around as long as these attitudes. A triangular or rectangular structure with a bar for the child to lean on and wheels to help them move were often used, and can be found recorded in paintings, woodcuts and embroidery from the 14th century. By the 17th century, some frames had started to enclose the infant more securely, often in a circular structure that fitted more closely around the waist, to better guard against trips and falls. Such devices, apparently used most popularly in Britain, Germany and Holland, were called a variety of different names such as baby walkers, go-carts or go-gins.

In 1707, Lord George Hay recorded how his young nephew Thomas “runs up and down the room in a machine made of willows, but my lady the Countess takes care that he does not stress himself with walking too much”. The willows referred to were the wickerwork of Thomas’ walker, a practical choice in an age where items sometimes needed to be burned to rid a household of infectious diseases. It was not just the aristocracy who employed such devices. Wickerwork was cheap and widely available, and simple versions could also be home made in the houses of poorer people. They were often used from a surprisingly young age. In 1777, Sarah Brown advised that “when your child is five months old…you may put it into a go-cart”, although she added that keeping the frame tied to a table for the first fortnight so the baby “may feel its feet properly” was advisable.

More elaborate designs started appearing in the 18th century, as ideas started to develop about children learning through play. Examples from 19th century Holland and England include walkers with table space for the child to have small toys to hand while taking their exercise, although the Dutch speelstoel (play chair) sounds rather more pleasant than the English term ‘baby cage’ that was sometimes used around this time.

The use of baby walkers also required parents to rethink what they dressed their youngsters in. The long frocks that had been typically worn by babies were impractical when they were expected to stand upright, so shorter ‘going frocks’ were worn instead. The move from one type of dress to the other – ‘short coating’ – became an important milestone in a child’s life and something for parents to plan for. A copy of the Cassell’s Household Guide from the 1880s instructed that, “It is, generally speaking, an unthrifty plan for a young mother to cut up her baby’s long robing and underskirts to short-coat it. If her family increases, these long garments will be ready for new visitors.” Another accessory was also used to accommodate the child learning to walk: the ‘pudding hat’ or ‘falling cap’, a padded roll that encircled the crown and (hopefully) protected the child’s delicate head if they did manage to fall over or bump into furniture.

Another technique employed by parents keen to get their offspring walking was the use of leading strings, which helped to hold up and guide the child as they took early steps. For poorer households, this might be something as simple as a rope or cord tied around the child’s waist, but more fashionable parents might have chosen ribbons that they could coordinate with their child’s outfit and sew into the shoulders – these versions were sometimes called ‘hanging sleeves’. For more active children who required greater restraint, there is suggestion that the strings may have been sewn into the child’s corset and fed through holes in the shoulders rather than being attached directly there.

Corsets for children weren’t boned as those used by women were, but rather were thickly padded and quilted garments, providing both warmth and further encouragement for a straight spine and upright posture. The use of leading strings could be found well into the 19th century, although some parents who considered themselves more forward-thinking started to abandon them earlier on. In his book Advice to Mothers (1809), Dr William Buchan warned that the use of leading strings could lead to a number of ills, including “habitual indigestion” or “consumptive complaints”.

From the end of the 18th century, attitudes started to change as many doctors, teachers and other experts started to denounce devices that forced an upright posture and very early walking. Attitudes began to move away from seeing the child as merely a thing to be corrected and taught until they reached adult rationality. Like swaddling, these devices were now considered by some to slow down the natural development of the infant. One doctor warned that “stand the infant up too early, and he will end up limping”, while others, probably misled by the sight of children with rickets, claimed that early walking caused immature legs to buckle under the strain of the child’s weight.

There were still some experts who promoted these devices as aids to walking and a way to strengthen and straighten limbs, however, and by the early 19th century John Thomas Smith (1766-1833) was still able to note that “the go-cart was common in every toy shop in London”. Baby walkers, while becoming more controversial over time, still remain in use by some parents even today. A paper produced by the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital in 1987 highlighted their dangers, noting that their A&E department saw over 200 accidents attributable to them per year, while they were banned altogether in Canada in 2004.

Other devices persisted in use throughout the 19th century. The turnstile or baby runner – a wooden beam that stretched from floor to ceiling with the child locked within a horizontal plank of adjustable height – allowed children to pace out a circular motion around the central pole. Arguably safer than a walker that permitted children to wander near hazards such as open fires and hot ovens, the benefits of this strange device were promoted as late as 1911, when a child-rearing author wrote “this…makes the process of teaching babies to walk very convenient, effective and dependable”. The noted garden designer and artist Gertrude Jekyll recorded witnessing one of these contraptions in use in 1904: “When the baby had grown beyond the crawling stage, it was exercised and encouraged to find its feet, and at the same time kept safe from the fire, by the baby-runner”. This shows us an important step on from earlier idea of teaching babies to walk: now it was something used after crawling rather than to try and replace it.

More recently, teaching children to walk has been through playfulness, encouragement and letting the child develop at their own pace rather than forced early mobility. The way we help our children to learn this key skill reflects how we understand childhood at any given time. While we retain the idea that exercise and fresh air are good for us, we have lost the obsession that many of our ancestors had for a straight back and rigid uprightness at all costs.