How do you teach a baby to crawl?

Very often young parents want to teach their baby to crawl, but do not know how to do it. Crawling plays a very important role in the life of a child. So, how to teach a child to crawl?

Early crawling

If your baby does not start crawling actively during the period of 6-7 months of life, do not worry, everything is normal. Crawling is still ahead. It is imperative to first teach the child to crawl, and then walk... your baby should crawl to his heart's content. Crawling is an excellent gymnastics for children, which also develops coordination, successfully develops fine motor skills. If your baby learns to crawl, he begins to speak faster, since the process of crawling develops the speech apparatus very well.

At the age of one week, your baby is already beginning to try to move without outside help. It is advisable that you place your baby directly on his tummy and be sure to try to make sure that the baby is lying on a flat surface. In this position, the baby will try to move his legs to push off as far as possible. Put your palm under the baby's heel to make it easier for the baby to move in the right direction.

At 5 months of age, babies are able to move on their stomachs to where they need to go. To increase the baby's interest in such movements, place bright toys around them so that it is interesting to reach them. Then the baby will try to crawl to the object of his interest.

You can give the baby some toy, and then slowly drag it forward so that the baby reaches for it more and more, then he will automatically begin to crawl. The baby also needs an incentive to move, bragging about his successes to the adults around him. Rejoice when he moves forward or in the direction of the toys, then the baby will also have a lot of fun.

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Obstacle course

You can place the baby on a blanket or something flat and place various objects that he likes around him, and you yourself will be between the baby and the toys, like a living barrier. Or you can try to place barriers at a distance of maximum 30 centimeters, so that the baby steps over them, crawls around them and, finally, gets to the object of his desires. Try to praise the child as emotionally as possible for the successes that he makes. It's so interesting.

Interesting fact

If you touch the baby's upper lip, he may start crawling towards you, trying to get as close to your finger as possible to put it in his mouth. Of course, this method does not work with all children, but it is worth a try.

Interest is the engine of progress

Have you ever wondered why various spinning and noisy toys are hung above a child's bed? To arouse the child's interest so that he can reach for these objects. A small child is just beginning to explore this fascinating world, and with the help of his first toys he does this successfully.

When a child reaches for toys, he develops coordination and muscles of his arms, back, and even legs. Therefore, it is extremely important that he is interested in what is happening around him. If you gradually increase the distance from the child to the toy, the child will become more and more interested in reaching for them. In this way, you will be able to observe the child's first attempts to master coordination, to make his body work.

8 months

Even by eight months, your baby may not try to crawl or even strain in any way in his body movements. Some children do not need to crawl, they have such a good physiology that the body may not need such exercises as crawling. Over time, the child will simply begin to try to stand on his feet and walk, or at least just sit. In the sitting position, children develop their back muscles and skeleton in general very well.

Problems with crawling

If after long and painful attempts to crawl your child fails, then this may be a serious problem to think about. Unsuccessful crawling can manifest itself in different ways: the child tries with difficulty to move on his back, or on his belly, tries to move sideways and barely rises on his tiny hands. At an early age, all these reasons are normal, because the child is just learning to control his body, but in later periods this is a reason to go to the doctor for a consultation and examination.

Muscle memory

If you constantly repeat the same movements, your child will get used to it, he will develop a habit. We recommend the following exercises so that the child gets used to reaching for toys, develops mentally and physically:

Place the baby on his tummy (some children do not like this and they begin to actively resist such disrespectful attitude towards themselves), soon children get used to the fact that they lie on their tummy. Let the baby touch a nice and bright toy, then slowly lift the toy up several times so that the child gets used to holding support on three points. During this exercise, the baby will stretch one hand up to the toy to get it.

To make it easier for the baby to hold three points of support and hold on to one hand, place a special bolster under the baby's chest (a rolled-up sheet, towel, or blanket can be used as a bolster), but there is one peculiarity. There should be several bolsters of different sizes, for the baby's convenience and because he may not like some of them. Bolsters are sold in children's stores, in different sizes, colors, and even transparent, and they can have toys in the middle.

You have learned many methods on how to teach a child to crawl. All that remains is to apply them in practice – and the baby will soon begin not only to crawl, but also to walk.