So here you are. A new parent. You’re holding your bundle of joy tightly and never want to let go of your baby, let alone cause him or her any discomfort. But then the time comes to start tummy time. Your baby doesn’t like it and they’re very vocal about it. You’re wondering if you’re doing the right thing. In this article we confirm that you are doing the right thing, talk about our experience, and show you the reasons why tummy time is important for your baby.
An Immediate And Welcome Surprise
We have been very fortunate as parents for a variety of reasons. For this article in particular, I’ll state that our baby came out of the womb with a strong neck that was virtually 100% ready to hold up her head. Not exactly what we were expecting.
Seriously, she’d be on our collective chests and able to have her head up ever so slightly. Our pediatrician was amazed, and told us she was already a few months early in this particular childhood development. For some parents, especially new ones, there would be the temptation to take it a little easier with a child that is ahead of schedule. After all, they’re already ahead. It’s just about maintaining progress.
While we were certainly happy, that wasn’t going to be our mindset. She was ahead, so we figured that by just keeping her on a normal schedule, she’d remain ahead. Spoiler: we were right!
Why Tummy Time Is Important For Your Baby
Obviously, if you’re going to do something that is going to intentionally piss off your baby, you’d probably like to understand more about why you’re doing it.
After all, I didn’t begin my journey of fatherhood to willingly put my child into a state of uncontrollable sobbing. That’s the job of bad parents, right? Yeah, mostly.
But tummy time is important for your baby because it is the basis and foundation for so many future milestones. As the United States Department of Health explains, tummy time does the following:
- Strengthen baby’s neck, shoulder, and arm muscles so the baby can start to sit up, crawl, and eventually walk on their own
- Improve baby’s ability to move and control their muscles to complete various actions (sometimes called “motor skills”)
- Prevent flat spots on the back of baby’s head
Even though I highlighted a government site (I know, I threw up a little, too), I probably had you at “sit up, crawl and eventually walk.”
The First Tummy Time
Ah, yes. The first tummy time. Squealing, whining, screaming, red faced, spit and sooooo much crying. Now I won’t bullshit you—it was tough and we immediately picked her up. After all, we’re not monsters!
After doing some research though, we found out that during the beginning we should be diligent in trying to get our baby to do tummy time for 3-5 minutes a session, crying or not. I want to say for the first week or so we were getting her right to the three minute mark and she was so pissed that we immediately got her off of the ground once the iPhone timer hit zero.
After that first week, she was still pissy, thought not as much. That afforded us the opportunity to stretch it out to five minutes each session. We were doing that three or four times a day.
Tip: buy a water mat. We bought something like this one, and it certainly made things a little more comfortable for our baby. I don’t think we used it for very long, maybe a month or two tops, but it was a lot easier to keep her on her stomach with this initially than the floor.
Tummy Time Routine And Safety
A routine for tummy time is critical. In the early days we could easily lose track of time and might only get one or two sessions in each day. One day we just decide to put her on the tummy shortly after we woke her up from a nap. After a nice 3-5 minutes we then ‘rewarded’ her with some milk and proceeded to do everything we’d normally do during a wake window.
Eventually, it became second nature and ‘scheduled tummy time’ just became ‘tummy time’.
As far as safety is concerned, during her water mat days at least one of us was always with her. However, after that time ended, and this will probably be a controversial opinion, we were able to leave her alone. I’m not suggesting we left her general vicinity (usually we were in the next room over), but after she was clearly able to keep her head up and there was no suffocation risk from the water mat, the safety risks evaporated. Plus we were always close enough to hear our (always) vocal daughter.
Tummy Time Keeps Paying Off
When we took her in for her two-month checkup, our pediatrician continued to show amazement. She was holding her head up even stronger, and was very alert. She was still a couple months ahead of her peers. It feels good to do something right, but even better to keep doing it correctly!
Fast forward to the end of month four and she completed her first back-to-front roll. At that point she was certainly doing more than an hour a day of tummy time. I can’t remember exactly when the transition from ‘pissy’ to ‘go-with-the-flow’ occurred, but if I had to put money on it I would say around the time we took her in for the second pediatrician visit.
The fifth month was the best advertisement for tummy time. She was consistently rolling and started using her arms to hold her chest and shoulders up for short spurts. The doctor again confirmed during her six month checkup that she was doing things an eight or nine month old would do.
Tummy Time Doesn’t Stop Until It Does
As I sit here typing, we are just a few days shy of her seventh month on this Earth. She now rolls across the room and last week started rocking. That means it’s a matter of days or a couple weeks before the crawling starts.
I’d say that right now the vast majority of the time that she isn’t either being held or eating, she’s on her stomach. But long gone are the days of scheduled sessions. It’s just where she wants to be and I’m sure that won’t change until she walks.
Now Do You See Why It’s Important?
The early days will be tough. No one wants to sit there while their baby flails, cries or screams. But one day those cries and screams will turn into giggles and laughs. The flails will make way for crawling and walking.
Enjoy these moments. Relish the newborn stage. It truly doesn’t last long.
