My Baby Moves : Play with a purpose

7 Fast Ways to Get Your Baby To Crawl Now

It is not okay to skip crawling. Here are 7 easy strategies you can use now that will help your child learn to crawl.

Is it okay form my child to skip crawling?

Your baby needs to crawl in all fours the traditional way for many reasons. That being said, many babies do not do this and seemingly turn out fine. A few of these babies have some imbalances that may not be noticed while others may turn out okay. If at all possible, your baby needs to be in all fours. You can encourage this in several ways.

1.) Try placing her in a modified all fours position by having her kneel at a large pillow or couch cushion.

2.) Lay on the floor on your back and let your child pull up on you. Help her, if needed. She might just want to pull up to her knees and that is wonderful!

3.) Lay your baby on her back and bring her knees to her chest. Gently bicycle her legs and sing a simple song as you do this. Even patterning the movement like this will help kickstart the process!

4.) Put your baby on her belly and help her bring one leg up on one side to play. As she does this, she may be able to lift the arm on the same side to reach and that is great. You are helping her learn how to shift her weight. Now repeat on the other side. She may push off and go forward, which is a wonderful game–see the next item!

5.) On her belly, bring the leg up like you were doing in #4. Gently help her push forward by helping her at the foot and her bottom. Now do the other side. Be careful to help her keep from falling forward onto her face.

6.) Place your baby on her belly on a soft surface. Use a thin blanket under your baby’s arms and gently lift up to cradle her in the air slightly. Help her tuck her legs underneath to assume all fours position. Gently rock her side to side. If she loves this, help her move forward.

7.) Place your baby in all fours if she will let you. Keep your hand under her chest and her legs tucked underneath. Help her rock side to side and back and forth.

There are many more ideas but these will get you started!

If your baby is army crawling, she is on her way! Encourage your baby to crawl over your leg with assistance. If your baby is a scooter, this will work as well to help her stay in all fours longer. Make sure to help her by supporting her chest and keep her from collapsing as she goes over your leg. There are many other strategies that can be used. Email me if you want more information on this.

For available books on how to play with your child, click HERE

Playing with your baby to improve development

How do you play with your baby to help her develop? This article gives a few simple ideas with references to even more. Make quality time have more quality.

You have read all the baby books, talked to other mothers, and scoured the internet. How many times do you do this and then sit down, exhausted at the end of the day and realize that you didn’t have time to do any of it?

Let’s rethink it all.

First, you can use every time you interact with your baby, whether you are carrying her, feeding her, bathing her, etc, to help her achieve her best. It doesn’t matter if you have all day with your baby or snippets of time around the family schedule and work, you have the ability to give her things she needs through simple interactions.

As a pediatric physical therapist, I spend much of my day helping parents understand this simple principle: Every single thing you and your baby do together is a valuable learning experience. Thinking purely from a gross motor perspective, I can spout off something for every interaction to address a skill your baby needs. I can also give you suggestions for the other areas of development.

Let’s look at an example:

Head control: this is a very valuable skill that a baby needs in order to advance through to all the stages and finally walk. The following examples are ways to work on this during the day.

Morning: You pick up your baby in a diagonal pattern by rolling her up on her elbow and into sitting and finally pick her up. By doing this, you are helping her learn to pick her head up and reduce any head lag (head “lags” behind if you pull her to sit). As she starts to participate with this, you can bring her more in a straight pattern to sit (always supporting from behind her shoulders). I usually continue the diagonal pattern because it “patterns” the idea of getting into sitting.

Carrying her to changing table: Place her up on your shoulder to help her use her neck muscles more. If she is wobbly with this, give a little support with your other hand.

Changing table: Keep a little rattle up here and move it from side to side to have her follow with her eyes and hopefully her head. This works her neck muscles too. Go ahead and change that diaper too!

Carrying her to a chair to feed her: Again, hold her high on your shoulder and make her work a little harder.

Feeding: Make sure she is not arching too much and is able to relax. If she is arching a lot, tell the doctor and your therapist, if you have one. This may be a sign of some things that may need to be checked.

Carrying to her car seat: If you are getting ready to leave for daycare, carry her high on your shoulder again to allow that head to keep working.

Carrying to have some floor time: If you are staying home for now, place her on the floor to play. Give her a few seconds or longer (if she tolerates) in some tummy time (remember this may be better with an empty stomach if she spits up a lot). If she spits up a lot, place her in sitting on your lap or between your legs in the “mommy chair” to allow her to work on sitting up. If you need to get some things done and need to keep her safe or more upright, place her in a bouncy seat with toys in front for her to watch and bat at with her hands.

Do you get the idea?

You have basically taken your baby out of bed, changed her diaper, and fed her. At this point, you have given her many ways to improve her head control with just these simple interactions.

A pediatric PT will be able to guide you through many other ideas on ways to simple carry and care for your child using positioning and simple changes to things you are already doing. With these ideas, you will be giving your baby much needed exercise throughout the day. A speech or occupational therapist can expand the above ideas to include singing and talking to your child or placing toys in her hands to improve her speech and cognitive skills as well as improve her sensory exploration and arm/hand strength.

No small movement is unimportant in development. A baby moves to improve movement in order to move. Every kick, reach, grasp, and babble means something important to her development.

Click HERE for available books for more ideas.

D-Day

No, I don’t mean Normandy and WWII. I am talking about Diagnosis Day.

As a therapist, I usually see the event coming and try to work with a family to help them understand what to expect as they go to each doctor’s visit. I am a “glass half full” kind of person, so I look at the beauty of each child I work with and the potential for what we can accomplish together. To me, it is not about what the piece of paper says, it is about working toward the goals set before us.

I have said for years that a course in grief counseling for all therapists would be extremely beneficial. The stages of grief are not any different for a parent, as they accept the diagnosis of their child. They are in effect seeing the image of what they wished for their child be extinguished in one simple statement from a physician. Sometimes, the diagnosis may be something minor or mild, but even those parents are grieving too. For many parents, to protect and “take a bullet” for their child is as natural as breathing. When D-Day hits, the words strike the parent right through their heart, and there are very few ways that that can heal that right away. Time and understanding, especially of the grieving process, is very valuable in learning how to handle these situations.

I am a physical therapist, but I am also a mother. I fully understand the pain of watching a child struggle and not being able to help. The incredible resiliency of a child is remarkable and inspiring. When D-Day hits, remember that the child is the same child the day before, the day of, and the day after their diagnosis. Nothing has changed except the insertion of a label. As a therapist, understanding the grieving process is critical to understanding how to help the family. Of course, a therapist will need to utilize their training to help your child, but the parents may need more from them as well. The therapists need to be prepared with information and the parents need to be prepared with questions. As a therapist, I need to be able to sometimes say “I’m not sure, but I will try to find out.” I won’t always know everything, but I am well-educated and know how to find out more information from reliable sources. I utilize my peers and colleagues across the nation, if necessary, to assist my families in their new journey. As the parents try to muddle through the medical terms, they are often bogged down with the definitions and how it all fits together. What they really want to know is “Will my child be okay?”

Get familiar with the stages of grief–this will help to understand the process more. Here are the basics:

1.) Denial

Many of our families may camp out here. This is an easy stage to stay in for a little while. Sometimes it is masked with the over-zealous “I will fix this” attitude. Be patient with them. They were just dealt a huge blow and need your support now more than ever.

2.) Anger

Maybe they will turn on you, so don’t take it personally. They are really just angry at the circumstance, but some people need a scapegoat.

3.) Bargaining

I see a lot of people caught up here for a long time. They seem to try to punish themselves for not doing more.

4.) Depression

If anyone stays here too long, I would recommend counseling. Of course, any parent or caregiver might benefit from counseling, as they navigate the phases. I try to encourage support groups of some kind, but sometimes social media makes a parent more guilt ridden and more depressed. The social media world is somewhat unrealistic of the day to day activities of raising a child, especially one with special needs.

5.) Acceptance

In the early years of therapy, many of the kids never even get a fully developed diagnosis. Even so, there are a great deal of parents who have made it to this phase, or at least are on the right track to get there.

Remember that the phases can be revisited if a new twist or turn occurs. Don’t feel like you are alone, if you are a parent. The therapists want to help you–that is why we chose this profession to dedicate our lives to do every day!

For ideas on how to play with your child to enhance development, click HERE for available books.

Tummy Time, Back To Sleep, and Container Babies

As a pediatric physical therapist that works almost exclusively in the 0 to 3-year-old population, I see a lot of delay that has no underlying reason. Of course, delay is always something to be concerned about and should be monitored to see if there is an underlying reason, but I’m speaking to the undetermined undiagnosed delay today. I believe that much of this delay can be attributed to the Back To Sleep program. Although I do not wish to see this program discontinued because it is saving lives from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), I do feel that there needs to be some clarification and some emphasis given to parents.

Most people understand the importance of tummy time. The problem is, children are almost always on their backs. We put them on their back in a bouncy seat, a swing, a car seat, etc. We have a catch phrase for this: “Container Babies” because they are always in some kind of container. Besides all the container time, now we put them to sleep on their back. That is a majority of their day and night!

After all this time on their backs, many children will cry when placed on their tummies because they may not be able to lift their head or push up enough to feel comfortable. This makes most parents or daycare workers not willing to continue this position because the child is upset.

There are a lot of different ways to accomplish tummy time without directly placing a child on their tummy on the floor. See the posts under the Gross Motor Activities for creative tummy time play. By the way, did you know that the current recommendation for accumulative tummy time is one hour a day? Not all at once–accumulated throughout the entire day, but even still, I doubt most people understand this suggestion and how ot accomplish it. Tummy time skills need to be adhered to for a child to be able to progress through all the developmental skills. It should only be “skipped” or changed under the direction of a therapist and only for specific reasons. Without this position, a child will have difficulty learning to move and transition in and out of different positions, but the biggest problem besides the delay in movement and other skills is the flattening that can occur to the back of the head or to one side (which can lead to terrible neck positions as well). If this flattening continues, the child can have other severe problems, such as facial deformities, that are irreversible. If this is caught soon enough, though, therapy and a helmet can be used to help direct the shape of the head until the skull fuses.

There are different types of flattening that can occur and all can be caused by other things as well, but if your child is not moving well or only likes to lie on his or her back and/or you notice a flattened area on their head or a place where hair is rubbing off, get help! Contact a pediatric physical therapist and let them help you get back on track or you could be facing months of therapy.

And…get your sweet little one out of those “containers” as much as you can!

Click HERE for available books for your child

6 Easy Ways to Improve Your Baby’s Development and Reduce Arching

You don’t have to understand everything about baby development to sense that something might be wrong. One of the problems that parents sometimes notice is that their baby is arching too much. If you sense your baby is not “holding” you with his or her legs and arms, I strongly suggest that you have your baby evaluated by a pediatric physical therapist. This is generally a sign that your child is overusing extension in his or her movement patterns or having difficulty with their muscle tone. These arching movements can lead to more abnormal movement patterns and make attaining skills more difficult.

Other signs for this:

–arms stay pulled back and high, even in sitting

–unable to roll or “flips” to roll

–not grabbing feet after about 5 months old

–when on tummy, looks like he or she is “swimming” on tummy with arms and legs held up

This is a partial list. Generally, this needs to be addressed by someone who can teach you how to hold and carry your baby. For now, try these 6 simple ways to improve your baby’s development and reduce arching:

1.) Carry your baby in a “ball” by curling feet toward his or her hands

2.) Place baby on his or her back and bring feet toward their hands to play peek a boo between his or her feet

3.) Place your child in side-lying to play (even if older). This will help bring arms together more.

4.) Carry your baby in a split leg position–hold one leg up and let the other dangle with your baby facing away from you.

5.) Place your baby on his or her back and put colorful socks on your baby’s feet or maybe a rattle sock on their foot to encourage them to pull their feet up more to look at them.

6.) Place your baby on his or her back under a baby gym with the toys dangling near their feet. Show your baby how to lift his or her feet to kick the toys. As your baby gets better at this, slide the gym toward your baby’s knees to make him or her lift the legs even higher. All of this will work your baby’s lower abdominals and reduce some of the arching.

If you feel your baby is arching too much, there may be a medical reason as well, such as reflux or constipation. These conditions can be treated easily to reduce the discomfort your baby may be feeling. Other causes could be related to prematurity or other medical conditions. This is always worth having someone like a pediatric physical therapist evaluate your child. Your baby should not be arching a lot to move and this can easily be remedied with simple instructions to play and carry your child like the ones given above.

These are just a few tips. More can be found under the gross motor activity pages for rolling, tummy time, and sitting games.

For more ideas on ways to play with your child, click HERE for available books.

My Toddler seems to fall all the time…

I received emails today from two different moms concerned about their toddler falling. My first response would be that some falling is normal and necessary for the learning and maturation process of walking. Of course, we don’t ever want our children to fall down, but some falling will occur as they learn to maneuver with and without shoes and over a variety of surfaces.

One note: Eye and ear problems should be ruled out before asking your child to play the games suggested here. See your pediatrician first to let them do a preliminary check and maybe refer you to a specialist, if needed. For example, if your child has had a lot of recent ear infections, he/she may be falling due to issues with fluid in his/her ears.

If your toddler just began walking, keep him/her barefoot inside as much as possible to keep his/her feet in contact with surface changes and allow his/her foot to begin to mature in strength. When going outside, please put on shoes for protection. See my What kind of shoes should I buy page for more information on this.

If your toddler is still falling a lot and has been walking for more than just a couple of weeks, don’t panic but do work on some simple games to help him/her watch where he/she is going:

1.) Play STOP/START: Hold your toddler’s hand and say “Ready, Set, Go!” and help them “run” then say “STOP” and cue them to stop. Do this over and over and make it SILLY and FUN!!! Your child will begin to get the hang of the game and LOVE it. This will help him/her be more aware of your commands (particularly if they are running toward a busy street) and will help them learn to pay more attention.

2.) Play a the same game with an obstacle in your path (a kitchen chair). Run up to it and say “STOP” and then teach them to sneak around to go again! Use your imagination but give your child the idea to look where they are going.

3.) Go back to the floor to play….WHAT??? Yes to the floor!!! Get in a habit of spending some time each day doing a puzzle or blocks or something that you can communicate and have your child work on a fine motor skill. This will teach him/her to fall less. I promise! I have seen it dozens of times! Your little one needs to learn to slow down and play. Walking is so much fun but it breeds a lot of bulls in china shops!

4.) One leg standing: When your child is standing and playing at a surface like a couch, come behind him/her and help him/her prop a foot on a book or maybe your leg to work on standing on one leg. Switch legs often to keep him/her working without getting frustrated. To advance this, you can play follow the leader type games and have him/her try to lift one leg and stand briefly. Make sure he/she is doing both sides!

5.) Wobble standing: Take your child to a window or door where they can easily see outside. Have them stand on your legs as you kneel behind him/her. Let your child hold the window and you can work on helping him/her keep balanced as you talk about what you see outside.

6.) Pillow walking: Set up couch cushions or pillows and help your child walk on them or step up and down.

7.) Target practice: Use painters tape and mark x’s or make a line on your carpet and have your child steps on these to work on balance. Make sure you test the tape on your floor before using it. This doesn’t work well on wood. Be creative and use other things to mark the “targets” –for example, outside you can use sidewalk chalk to make a line to walk on or step across.

I hope this helps. There are so many more strategies to teach. I will be working on balance skills soon in an upcoming publication! Check back soon!

For ideas on how to play more effectively to enhance development, click HERE

Leg braces: does my child need these?

First, let me say that I probably get 50% of my emails about this and about foot/leg positions of children in general. I am so glad that you are watching and observing your child. Please be patient as your baby learns to stand and walk, as this usually develops over time with a LOT of changes going on in his or her feet and legs. See my page on toeing in and out for some more information.

The normal progression with leg position is that your child will have bowed legs as a baby and will look more knock-kneed as a pre-schooler. All of this is normal, but if you are not sure, it is okay to ask someone. The foot develops with weight bearing or standing. As your child learns to stand and walk, the foot will develop an arch. If your baby is flat-footed, that is normal, but as he or she begins to walk, if the foot remains flat, then it should be checked.

The good news is that your child will most likely grow out of whatever you are concerned about, but you should always as your pediatrician about any suspected problems to get their expertise. Many problems need to be caught early in order to correct for the best results, and if your mommy senses are “tingling” that something isn’t right, I would recommend a professional to evaluate your child. Most pediatricians know when to send you to a therapist. If you are not satisfied, please ask again until you get the information you need.

You are always going to be your child’s best advocate!

For information on books that are available, click HERE

Has your child stopped walking?

FIRST: If your baby is limping or was walking A LOT and now stopped, please have them evaluated to make sure no other problems exist. This post is for new walkers with no limping etc.

Has your child stopped walking? I will tell you that this is a normal part of the development of some babies. Let me explain:

Starting to walk is a very challenging activity. Your baby has to control a large number of muscles and joints as well as balance on two very small feet. As your child develops the courage and skills to take the first few steps, he or she may want to do it over and over to your cheers and praise. Soon, however, the praise is not enough to counteract the fact that sometimes your baby will fall. Falling is wonderful and terrible at the same time. A pediatric PT would work on practicing falling with controlled falling games and songs. This way, your child would develop the ability and the confidence to get down from standing. Falls teach your baby a lot about the world.

Let’s review a few principles:

1.) Always work on short distances when practicing walking. Keep the distance short–maybe one or two steps only at first. Keep it here for awhile. Don’t push too hard. Soon enough your little one will venture further.

2.) NEVER back up. Always give your cutie a solid and dependable stopping point. How awful if you were trying to walk a tight rope and someone kept extending the end point! You would be scared and less willing to do it again. The same is true for your baby.

3.) Falling teaches a LOT. A baby needs to learn what he or she did wrong. Provide a carpeted or soft surface to practice so that the falls don’t hurt so much but have the value of teaching. PRACTICE falling with games like Ring Around the Rosie.

4.) Some babies will pull to stand and not know how to get down. You may find your baby standing in his or her crib crying and not know why. It is possible that they don’t know how to get down. Work on up and down games with a bucket of blocks. 5.) Have fun and BE PATIENT! Enjoy this time. It is precious! Also, your baby may look very funny at first. Give him or her time to develop walking skills and watch the gait pattern change. Video early steps. His or her arms will usually be high and feet wide. Video again about every week or so and watch the arms drop and the feet get closer. See my pages on toeing in and out for answers about that.

Now, getting back to the original question: Why has my baby stopped walking?

Most of the time, a baby is fascinated with standing and taking steps, and then the fascination wears off. A bad fall could also affect this. You may not even know that your baby had a scary fall. Either way, walking is a lot of work at first. Getting around on hands and knees is faster, so your baby will most likely want to revert to this for awhile. Don’t push, he or she will return to standing soon enough. There are some tricks to helping this. Several are outlined in my book; but a basic one is to always demand that your baby stand to be picked up. Do this subtly and he or she will never know!

For ideas on how to play with your child to enhance development, see available books HERE

Make Ice Cream in a Bag with Your Toddler!

The following is a simple way to make ice cream in a ziplock bag with your toddler at home:

Things you will need:

Gallon zip lock bags

Sandwich zip lock bags

Half and Half

Sugar

Vanilla

Crushed Ice

Salt (rock salt is best if you have it)

In a mixing bowl, have your little ones help you put in

1Tbsp Sugar

½ cup half and half

¼ tsp vanilla

Mix this and pour into 1 ziplock sandwich bag

In the gallon bag, place 1/3 cup rock salt and 3 cups crushed ice and the sealed sandwich bag. Seal the large bag and play a game of toss with the bag. As you grab the bag, have the person holding it squish and squeeze it a few times. In about 10-15 minutes you will have soft homemade ice cream. If you are doing several at a time, each person can hold and squish their own and you don’t have to play toss with it—this will strengthen hand muscles as well. This game helps children use both hands equally as well.

Have fun making ice cream in a bag with your toddler–or all the kids in your home! This was a year-round favorite in our home!

For information on available books for more ideas, click HERE

5 Simple Easter Egg Ideas to Improve Gross Motor Skills

Easter Egg hunting can be used for a LOT of different reasons. The general squat to stand work of picking up the eggs is excellent for general strengthening and it’s FUN! Try some of these INSIDE games to use your egg hunting skills all year round! The following are five simple Easter egg ideas for improving gross motor skills:

1.) Try putting some up high on the back of the couch to have your child climb up and down to get them. This creates a fantastic way to improve strength and motor planning. An alternative is to create “steps” by placing couch cushions down on the floor and have your child climb or step up and down.

2.) While inside, have your child step over a row of stuffed animals or blocks (you can even use your own leg) to get the “eggs” and return. This game works on the general strengthening for squat to stand work but adds the balance element of stepping over something.

3.) Use other items besides eggs. Have your child retrieve parts to a puzzle or maybe blocks to stack. Get siblings involved with the game by letting them hide the toys (in plain sight for younger kids) or let them have a turn too. Now you are adding more complex cognitive and fine motor work at the same time.

4.) Create a simple obstacle course to get back and forth to retrieve the items. Have your child climb over pillows and under a “tent” made with two chairs and a blanket. This variation gives your child a chance to work on more complex movements.

5.) Easter egg toss: use a box or laundry basket as your target and have your child toss eggs inside. When you get them all in, let your child dump the eggs on you! This game can be modified as a race with siblings to fill their container first.

Below are some other reasons and ways to use this great activity all year long.

For Toe Walkers, the motion of a squat to stand helps these children develop a deeper squat to stretch their heel cords and help reduce toe walking.

For Sensory fun try using Eggs to play in the water, sand, or a rice and bean mixture for scooping to add sensory feedback as well.

Ideas for things to place inside other than candy: Our family used money or stickers, but get creative. One idea is to fill the eggs with puzzle pieces and when you are through hunting, put the puzzle together. The added bonus is that you know an egg is missing if you have missing puzzle pieces.

Here are other great ideas (non-candy)–some of these can be choking hazards so judge this according to the age of your child:

–gift certificates

–party size play dough

–matchbox car

–small hard animals or rubber bugs, etc

–chapstick or small lip gloss

–small non-toxic nail polish

–erasers or pencil toppers

–hair bands or clips

–socks

–rings or earrings

–balloons

–gummy snacks or goldfish

–colorful shoelaces

–glow in the dark stars

–character bandaids

There are many other things that will fit but just make sure that they are appropriate for the ages of your children. The dollar store is a great place to hunt for good items to use.

Make this a regular activity–use just about anything to “hide” and seek!

For more information about available books, click HERE