BABY MOVES #11

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. *Learn more about corrected age HERE.

Here are some new activities to add to your Movement Variety program.

Baby Hands

Continue to provide opportunities for fine motor development in the hand. Watch for play that engages the forefinger as a point or poke. Try modeling some pushing and poking or finger tickling of toys or objects to show how it works.

Keep offering a wide variety of smaller items (SUPERVISION REQUIRED) or large items with smaller features, such as car/house keys on a ring.

These things lead to better grasping and pinching of objects and food, but also they help with gesture based communications such as pointing.

Note on Pointing and Communications: Several studies have shown that pointing in infants around 12 months seems to predict aspects of later language ability. However, there are nuances that aren’t fully understood (like many areas of sciences). What has been shown is that pointing is one of the earliest forms of communication initiated by the child. When children point, parents tend to pay attention or communicate the label of the object. And when parents are more responsive to pointing, babies often point more. What’s interesting is that there are also theories about why some kids don’t point much or why some kids with no language delays just don’t talk much. The leading ideas revolve around how the baby feels their needs are met. In some parent-child relationships, a parent might be in tune with a child so tightly that neither the parent or the child feel a need to point or talk – because their needs are met. It’s an interesting theory that is being tested. Overall – gesture based communication is an important and useful part of being a human and communicating with others. Promote it, support it, but in the end, every kid and every caregiver-baby relationship is different. More on pointing in a couple months, when kids might start doing it. It’s being brought up here because the roots of meaning and motor control are developing now.

Sitting and All Fours

Sitting is now likely a transition state, so just watch that they easily transition in and out of sitting and have a good variety of shoulder and forearm movements in sitting, while showing trunk stability. They will also show smooth rotation in sitting. As a quick reminder for sitting postures -> human bones prefer the ring sit, long sit, and side sit vs the W-sit (limited time in this position).

As part of this transition, watch for their ability to get into the kneeling position with and without hands, including the transition to half-kneeling or a lunge style position. This can be built by playing against a mirror or vertical surface with toys mounted such that the child has to grab/reach something with less support to pull up on. As they go from sitting or kneeling to standing and then back down – look for squatting symmetrically with some support from hand on furniture. Similar to strange crawling patterns, asymmetric squatting is often a sign of tightness as well. Here are some additional, and quick, visuals on this: [Instagram, @kinesio_kids]

With baby on all fours, place one toy on the floor in front of baby and others further away to promote crawling while holding objects in both hands (use small toys so he can easily grab them while crawling). Place toys onto and behind small obstacles to challenge the baby to crawl around or over obstacles to get to the toys.

Reminder: The more variety in shape and size of the obstacles, the more input for baby’s development of motor planning and problem solving skills. Look for ways to set up play where the baby can experiment with and adjust their crawling and climbing patterns and strategies. Also – improvements in fine motor control are related to improvements in cognitive planning ability. Crawling hits both systems. Fine motor training works for adults as well – it’s used in elite athletics.

Ball/car rolling and scarf tossing are fun ways to incorporate hand eye coordination and transitions. They often need to crawl to the ball, then sit, then roll or fling back your way. Ball rolling is also a great way to scaffold catching. Note: They might not always be interested.

Being Vertical

With baby standing at furniture, challenge their cruising skills by placing toys or other objects on furniture a few feet away and in different positions. See if baby can turn around with his back to the furniture, thus reducing the support he can get from his hands.

With baby standing at furniture, have baby cruise around corners and across gaps – from furniture to furniture or furniture to you. Look for variety in cruising surfaces and along furniture of different height, texture, width, etc.

Hold baby’s hands, while in standing, away from external support and lean them forward to promote supported walking. If possible, hold hands slightly at or above shoulder level (not all the way extended overhead), otherwise they learn to balance with hands up. If baby has good balance, gently reduce support on one hand to challenge his balance.

With baby standing, hold one hand only while promoting walking. You can keep your other hand close to the baby in case of falling.

For the going vertical stages, it’s the same as everything else -> “challenge the posture” through thoughtful play.

Movement is fun!
And it doesn’t have to be $$$.
Many times these types of toys have a very short life anyway, depending on the baby’s interest and development window. For example – the common “ball drop” toy or “object permanence” box can run $50-$90 as a set from some outlets. Most can be made with cardboard, household items, a few minutes and with minimal dollars. And they can be made together, it’s a fun form of interactive play, and these toys are easier to repurpose over time – especially since most “purpose built kids toys” only have a few months of usefulness.

Almost anything can be made with cardboard. Here’s an engineer dad putting his college degree to extreme DIY work. He builds a fort and slide – plus the structural tutorial on designing for baby use [YouTube, 5min 23sec]. Don’t have stairs? Make some!

Have Fun!