10 Ways to Teach Your Baby to Crawl

By eight months of age, most babies can crawl on their belly and by ten months most can crawl on hands and knees. While these motor skills develop easily for most children, others struggle or use unconventional methods to accomplish forward mobility, such as bunny-hopping or scooting on the bottom.  Is your baby on track?

While moving forward on the floor using unconventional methods is okay, those ways often occur because the baby has weakness or lack of flexibility in parts of the body. For example, a baby who was intolerant of tummy time may struggle with putting weight on her hands because of weakness in the shoulders. She may learn how to scoot on her bottom instead.

Developing strength in the shoulder and arm muscles is vital not only for crawling but also for later-developing skills, such as handwriting or using scissors. So, it is important that your baby learns to crawl because he will need the strength that develops for preschool activities.

10 ways to help your baby learn to crawl:

1. Offer lots of floor time – Babies who hate tummy time often spend too much time in a carrier, bouncy seat, or baby walker. While they are quiet and safe, being constrained limits their freedom to move and prevents opportunities to develop arm and shoulder strength.
2. Ensure your baby has leg flexibility – Doing this easy bicycle stretch during diaper changes or after bath time helps keep your baby’s legs flexible. Flexible legs are necessary for crawling on the hands and knees.
3. Make sure your baby can roll over – Rolling over requires quite a bit of flexibility and coordination to achieve. The muscles used to roll over are the same ones needed for your baby to crawl. Here is a video to help your baby gain flexibility in the torso to assist in rolling.
4. Help your baby get her feet to her mouth – When your baby is lying on her back, she should be able to reach her feet and usually can get them into her mouth. This is a sign of great hip and leg flexibility and abdominal strength. She will need that flexibility and strength to crawl when she is on her tummy. So, make sure she can reach her feet when she is on her back.
5. Decrease use of baby walkers – This goes back to my earlier point about baby holding equipment. While it is cute and fun when your baby can zoom here and there in the walker, he is not developing the strength needed to crawl. Arm and shoulder strength develop during crawling and that strength will be needed in a few years for your baby to color, use scissors, tie shoes, and zip jackets.
6. Prop your baby over your leg to build arm strength – Here is an easy way to do it. Strong shoulders, arms, and hands help your baby hold a pencil, steer a bicycle, or climb a tree to keep up with friends in preschool.  This technique works for babies who avoided tummy time or spent too many hours propped up in a carrier or walker.
7. Help your baby get into a hands and knees position – It looks easy but is hard for some babies so watch this how-to video. This activity is more advanced than #6 above and requires more work and patience from you. Some babies struggle with this because of weakness, fear, or unknown reasons.
8. Help your baby learn how to get from sitting to the hands and knees position and back to sitting – This is an important transitional movement! Here’s how to do it. When your baby can get himself into a sitting position from the hands and knees position or vice versa, he has reached a major milestone in his mobility.  No longer will you have to run over and help him get down from sitting or up into sitting when he is tired of laying on the floor. To accomplish this transitional movement, your baby needs excellent lower body flexibility and strength. Again, leg and torso flexibility is vital!
9. Eliminate or severely restrict the use of television, tablets, or other handheld screens – Screens are everywhere and there is nothing your baby may want more than to sit or be in the walker while watching her favorite show. However, watching a screen is a form of passive entertainment. Your baby’s brain is in the all-important phase of learning about the world—gravity, textures, smells, mobility, safety, and more. Passive activities inhibit participation in richer learning opportunities.
10. Create a safe environment for your baby to crawl and explore – Use foam floor mats, baby gates, or fencing to create a safe place in which your baby can explore. Plenty of time on the floor with age-appropriate toys will build strong brain connections and enhance not only your baby’s crawling skills but also can improve language and social skills.

These suggestions are general advice and may not work for your situation.  But, using these techniques will help your baby grow stronger. If your baby or you continue to struggle, seek direct assistance from your pediatrician or make an appointment with a pediatric physical therapist.

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(Photo Credit: Adobe Stock)