An important theme you’ll keep hearing is that all children develop at their own pace. Riley didn’t start crawling until she was almost 9 months old. We did many activities with her though to help get her ready for crawling. Tummy time is the most important activity you can do with baby to help develop those gross motor skills such as sitting, crawling, walking, etc. We began tummy time the day we brought Riley home from the hospital.
Riley was very excited about rolling at this point and didn’t really see the need for forward movement. I would encourage her to attempt forward movement by placing toys that she wanted just out of reach directly in front of her. However, Riley was quite the problem solver and would figure out how to roll away, shift, and roll back to retrieve the item. So that idea wasn’t the most effective.
We would encourage Riley to get into the crawling position whenever she was on her tummy by bending her legs underneath her. This would cause her to have to support her upper body with her arms. I would help hold her legs underneath her while she would shift her weight back and forth before slipping back onto her tummy again. This simple exercise helped her to practice balancing her weight on her hands and knees as well as feel how she could pull her knees underneath her to get into the crawling position. This is something she would later try on her own.
We would also lay Riley over our lower leg on her tummy which naturally put her into a crawl position and rock her back and forth. This also works over a pillow as well. This helped her to shift her weight back and forth on her hands and knees. We would place toys in front of her just out of reach to encourage forward movement.
Finally one day Riley seemed to want to try to move forward and as she tried to slide her legs up underneath herself and pull forward, she ended up pushing herself backwards. This is common and often babies will learn how to push themselves backwards before they make forward movement. This was of course frustrating for Riley, but that frustration can be a motivator for children to work to achieve their goal. Anytime Riley showed interest in wanting to move forward, I would help stabilize her legs underneath her and encourage her to walk her hands forward.
A great activity to help encourage hand walking is to lay baby tummy down over a ball (a ball the size of a kickball/soccer ball). Hold on to their legs or lower body (depending on how much stabilization they need) and allow baby to rest their hands on the ground. Slowly roll baby forward so that they have to move their hands to keep supporting themselves. Keep rolling the ball back and forth allowing baby to walk their hands back and forth.
Crawling and creeping take many forms. Riley started out army crawling on her stomach and in less than a month she was crawling on her hands and knees. This is now lead to her pulling herself up on everything and crawling everywhere. Crawling has really expanded Riley’s world and it is such an exciting time! See my next post for crawling activities.
