He’s looks like any other happy, smiling little boy.

But while other children his age are toddling about and exploring the world, two-year-old Wilson Sweeney is unable to walk or even sit up by himself due to a cruel condition.

Now parents Amy Slaven, 25, and Steven Sweeney, 30, have launched a massive £100,000 fundraising campaign to take Wilson to the USA for surgery to help him find his feet and pay for the specialist physiotherapy he will need in the future.

Amy said: “Wilson is bright, happy and like every two-year-old, learning new things every day. However, Wilson can’t sit unsupported, crawl or walk...yet!”

Wilson was born prematurely at 30 weeks, in 2016. He spent five-and-a-half weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax.

He required a feeding tube and received phototherapy for jaundice. He needed special equipment in the early days to help him breathe and was also treated for sepsis.

Amy said: “He did amazingly well and was discharged after five-and-a-half weeks in the neonatal unit. His development was as expected the first few months of his life. However, at around five months old he started missing his milestones. He couldn’t sit, didn’t learn to crawl or pull himself up.

Little Wilson with his sister Ava and parents Steven Sweeney and Amy Slaven, who are trying to raise £100,000 for their son to have surgery followed by intensive physiotherapy in the USA to help him walk

“At 13 months old, after an MRI scan, Wilson was diagnosed with cerebral palsy affecting all four limbs. Due to the stiffness in his legs we have been told Wilson will not walk without Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR) surgery. This stiffness also causes him pain each day.”

SDR had been developed by paediatric neurosurgeon Dr T S Park at the St Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri. The operation would remove or reduce spasticity in Wilson’s legs and give him the chance to walk.

Said Amy: “This surgery is also starting to become available in the UK but is not available on the NHS.

“After intensive research we decided to start ‘WillingWilson’ to raise the £100,000 necessary to enable us to fly Wilson out to America to have the operation performed by the doctor who pioneered the SDR surgery.

“The money raised will also pay for the intensive private physiotherapy required for three years after the operation as this will not be available to him on the NHS.”

Wilson lives with his parents and three-year-old sister Ava at the family home in Halifax.

Said Amy: “Wilson is a happy, determined little boy that just wants to learn to walk so he can join in and have fun with his big sisters. The frustration is beginning to show with him as he grows up and realises his limitations. He so desperately wants to sit up himself and walk, but his legs just won’t let him.

“As a parent it is heart-breaking to have to sit back and watch your very bright, smiley little boy struggle to get around, when all he wants to do is run about after his friends at nursery and do everything his big sister is able to do.

“It would mean the absolute world to us to be able to raise this money for him to enable him to have this operation and one day watch him take his first steps and see him pain free from the stiffness in his legs.”

The family is raising funds through the Just4Children charity, which will manage the funds. For more informastion, go to www.willingwilson.com or www.facebook.com/WillingWilson16 .