BABY MOVES

To understand how to MOVE – there are two foundational concepts to understand first.

PATTERN OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

There is a distinct pattern that human development follows. This applies to all development, from our sight and vision, and senses, to how we think and feel and move, to how the brain develops. The pattern is:

Head to Foot
Near to Far
Simple to Complex

This first year, you will see many forms of this progression in movement starting with neck control, then segmented spine control, arm development, to sitting, to crawling, to leg development and coordination for walking. When you know the process… you can support the process!

IF IT’S FIRING IT’S WIRING

When baby experiences something, the brain fires and then wires circuitry with that experience. A variety of new and novel experiences give the brain the most vivid information to fire and wire with. Talking to your baby with a big daily word count gives the brain rich practice and exposure to build language and learning on. Engaging the eyes with high contrast images and face time creates more opportunities for building those foundational brain circuits.

Motor skills are no different, if not even more impacted by firing wiring progressions of variety. During months 1 through 3, any time your child is awake and active they and are working on increasing their head control and neck strength and moving more of their simple muscles. We are at Head in the Head to Foot pattern. You can be a companion in this journey by being aware of how they spend their time and working some positional and movement variety into the daily routine.

Here are some moves for the next couple weeks. Aim to: Move daily, as baby is up for it (which might only be a couple times a day).

NOTE: Most guidelines are built for “birth at 40 weeks”. If your baby came early – it is recommended to “correct” or “adjust for due date”, specifically in movement. Example: To correct or adjust age, if your baby was born 1 month early, you take the difference in birth date and expected date and subtract that from their age. At 12 months of clock time age, they would be 11 months developmentally. When doing many of the activities in Fantastic Dads – please account for brith date prior to 40 weeks. Also – all development milestone adjustment tends to normalize by 2 years of age. *Learn more about corrected age HERE.

Try This

Tummy Time

This is basically another way to say “developing neck strength and head control”. Typical tummy time is putting baby on tummy on a flat surface, and working up to longer times of tolerance. You can work on neck and head control in many other ways – by doing tummy time on your belly, by laying on your back and holding them above you, by doing it in a lap, or even changing the angle to the baby so it’s a little easier (see image below of wedged up baby).

Help Baby Unwind

Gently extend the arms up past the ears (never force). Release and wait for the baby to recoil back into a tucked position. Gently extend arms down near belly. Release and wait for recoil. Do the same with the legs – extend them out, release, wait for recoil back to tucked. This helps baby continue to unwind from the womb position.

Build Muscle Tone

At some point the word tone started to be used to describe how we see definition in muscles, but the concept of muscle tone simply means the ability for the muscles to support movement and posture and help the baby be less floppy. Tone helps in the fight against gravity. Let baby push and pull against you or an object. For example, put your hands under their feet and let them push your hands away – or hold them vertically and let them push lightly against the ground. Try the unwind moves above, but let them pull/push slightly against you before you let them recoil.

Bicycle Legs

Classic baby move, pumping the legs. Can sometimes help baby pass gas and get poop pushing through.

Baby Ups

With baby on back, support the neck and hands and gently pull to sit. You can do partial baby sit ups vs full. This helps their brain and muscles with recognition of position change, and starts to give tone to the spine and abs.

Build Baby Vision

At some point the word tone started to be used to describe how we see definition in muscles, but the Any time baby is up for it – whether on back, side, upright or tummy time – incorporate things for the baby to look at. Can be a mobile, high contrast images, streamers, or a pair of dangling keys. To actively engage baby, try to get his/her attention from side to side, up and down.

As always – don’t progress any faster than your baby is ready for. Watch for the changes as the months go on. Before you know it, you’ll be playing chase!

Over the next two years – your infant, who can’t do much more than wave arms and legs around, essentially pinned in place by gravity, will develop into a child who moves with intent, is able to grasp, stand, sit, and walk. Hard to imagine right?

Here’s a glimpse into that.

Changes in physical skills from neck control all the way to running, hopping, and writing, fall into two main areas of movement development (also called motor skill development). These two categories are: Gross motor (large muscle) and Fine motor (small muscle). Gross motor (large muscle) development refers to control of the large muscles of the legs, arms, back and shoulders which are used to stabilize your skeleton for activities like standing, walking, sitting, running, jumping, climbing, swimming, and more. Fine motor (small muscle) development refers to use of the small movement muscles needed for precision for activities such as grasping objects (with hands or toes), holding, cutting, drawing, buttoning, or writing (AND EVEN TALKING – more on that later). These come together to eventually support agility, balance, coordination, power, and speed of movement. These developments all follow the pattern of Head to Foot, Near to Far, and Simple to Complex.

Are there “windows for motor development”?

Research currently points to YES. There seem to be periods of time in which vibrant experiences are vital to laying the “foundation” of brain circuits dedicated to motor control. The primary brain circuits (in the cerebellum) which control posture and coordination forge during the first two years. That’s the first 730 days! It is during this period that the child begins to gain considerable experience in the world as he or she “moves” about in the environment. For the broader, but still foundational, gross motor skills, the general window of opportunity to build these circuits in the brain appears to be open from birth to around age five. Progressions in years 3-5 cover how these develop through play.

The window of opportunity (or better termed “sensitive periods of brain development”) for finer muscle control and timing, which follows gross-motor development, is open from shortly after birth to about age nine. These brain circuits are needed for learning skills that require a high degree of manual dexterity, such as playing a musical instrument or performing precise manual operations like drawing.

Getting back to motor development now and what Dad can bring to it – research in December 2017 showed that the way parents hold and support and interact with their infant does directly correlate to the motor development of their trunk section (core and back). This research was focused on ~ 2.5 months of age to unsupported sitting (typically between 4 and 6 months is when ~ 90% of babies learn to sit unsupported). The foundation is still that safely supporting your baby (with your hands/body) in a variety of orientations (postural variations) helps with strong motor development. Other research shows that stronger motor development also enhances other areas of brain development in general.

Finally – if you would like to take a step back and look at a bigger picture of the general patterns of human development: here is a 2 page read from Professor Ruffin at Virginia Tech that explains it well.

This section has tidbits from around the web that are typically on Dads minds.

The Fascinating Story of Tummy Time

“Tummy Time” didn’t exist prior to 1993. It was invented in 1994 in response to American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to put kids to sleep on their backs to reduce the risk of SIDS. With less time on the belly, therapists started seeing motor delays and more cases of flat spots on the back of the head. Tummy Time was invented to counteract this.

Parents Matter – Our Early Lives with Children

For the past 70 years, scientists in Britain have been studying thousands of children through their lives to find out why some end up happy and healthy while others struggle. It’s the longest-running study of human development in the world. Reviewing this remarkable research, science journalist Helen Pearson shares some important findings about early life. [Ted Talk, 12min 17sec]