This post was originally published in March of 2011.
We started with tummy time a few days after they were born. You hear about how important tummy time is, but many people don't know why. This time helps babies develop upper body strength and neck control. As they learn to push up, turn their heads toward you, and roll over you can see the physical changes. What you can't see is the brain development that goes along with this. As babies learn body control, they are also learning to better use their brains.
They rolled away from each other right after this photo.
When they first succeed, they are surprised. Then they need to figure out exactly what they did that caused the success. They are learning many skills at once so it's not surprising that after easily rolling over one day it takes a few minutes the next day to remember how to do this again. The more they are allowed repetition the more this pathway in the brain is cemented and it becomes easier - to the point they don't even have to think about it.
Tummy time for everyone
Will babies eventually develop this without tummy time? Absolutely, but it will be later. There have also been recent studies showing that babies are having more neck problems from sleeping with their heads always turned to one side. Many parents complain about forcing their child into tummy time because their baby screams.
We're not happy.
We went through this for about a week. We used many distraction techniques - bells, scarves, books, our dog, anything that would keep their attention. We changed locations and when all else failed would have them lay on us.
Developing upper body strength
A little change of location
Tummy time certainly didn't hurt them and the research proves it helped so it's one of the things we made time for every day, even after they could roll over. They need to keep building that upper body strength so they can learn to crawl, walk, push, etc.
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