BABY MOVES #3

Here are some new things for the movement toolbox (building on FD05, FD09, FD13).

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.

Try This

Down the Center, Across the Center

Put your baby on their back in a comfortable position on the floor in front of you as you are on your knees or sitting. Get your baby’s attention with visual or auditory cues around their midline. Stay patient as you wait for a response – give your baby a chance to process. The goal is for their hands and head to be moving, with intention, in all directions of stimuli – up, down, left, right, angled – etc. Continue to help the baby explore all parts of their body as well as moving the arms and legs (crossing ankles) slightly across the body centerline. This activity will be useful for a couple weeks.

Feet Clap

With baby on back, gently bring the feet together in front to promote tactile “feet together play”. In the future this will progress into foot exploration with hands and unaided “clap your feet” as they do this on their own.

Tuck…

With baby on back, gently move feet toward the chest like a tuck or mini cannonball. Tuck them and release, letting them unwind on their own. One way to assist the tuck is to put your finger in the knee pit (the back of the knee) which will help signal the knee to bend – but don’t force the tuck.

… and Roll

With baby on their back or side, assist them into a tucked arms and legs position (kind of a fetal position). Get their attention with a toy from their back side as a cue to roll to that side. Repeat with the other side – or from the side to the center. This gets the trunk/body moving with the head as shown in images below (video version: [Youtube, 19sec]). The twisting of the body to roll is a “crossing the center” motion. Eventually everything will be able to move with everything else!

Tuck Cycle

Continue bicycle-like movement with babies feet, BOTH in a pedal motion, AND in symmetrical feet movement – both feet moving together. Do the movement for a few seconds then watch to see if the baby will continue independently. For bicycle movements – adding in words like “kick kick kick” or “pedal pedal” can continue to act as a verbal cue for this particular movement. These are seeds you can plant for when they learn to swim (kick kick kick) or ride a cycle (pedal pedal) in the future. The brain will remember the sound tied to motion.

Baby Back Arch

With baby on tummy, while on their forearms, gently stroke their back back to activate arching. It’s a reflex, so watch for it. The same can be done while in supported sitting. Explore using different textures to activate this reflex.

Baby Sit Up

Continue the pull to sit, while supporting only as much as the baby needs (-> scaffolding the skill). One way to continue to build head control is to slow down the second half of the move back down to laying. Changing the timing of an activity is a great way to watch for the skill and challenge it (in this case, head control). This will progress to a place where the head and neck stay steady during a pull to sit, which further builds shoulder strength and control.

Alternate chest/trunk supported sit up. The chin tuck while baby is leaning into the sit up is a good progress.

Dad as “Play Mat”

If you want to get in some extra social time – become the play mat. Support the baby in sitting on you, facing you, interact with them, get their attention with your voice (sing song time!), go through some movements, baby ups, tummy time on your knees, supported standing, etc. Trying adding in some extra motion, like light bouncing, to help their body learn about stability on an unstable surface (aka a Dad in motion). This is the close up way to explore movement progressions with your child.

The routine can also be done seated so they have to look UP into your eyes – further connecting their trunk/sitting stability to visual input and feedback.

Baby Balloon Limbs

Attaching helium balloons to a baby’s limbs in the coming months makes for some hilarious exploration. If you don’t have helium, you can run the string over something like a baby gym or chair so when the leg or arm moves, the object on the other end of the string moves. A variant is to attach bells or a noise maker to the legs so they get to hear some self created sound as they kick. This one REQUIRES supervision.

Tummy Time – MODS

Help your baby work their arms into the mix by gently tucking the arms and elbows under the shoulders. This helps lift the head via a stable “tripod” of the arms and trunk. See example below.

Continue to promote position variety. You can do this with the baby on your chest or legs or in your arms or on a pillow or cushion. If you have an exercise ball, it can be used to challenge the muscles that balance their bodies as they rock and bounce through different orientations. The key is a safe range of movement variety. See example below.

Remember – all babies develop on different trajectories – don’t worry if your baby hasn’t mastered something – it takes time, loads of patience, and practice (if it’s firing, it’s wiring). As always – Have Fun – Be Safe!

Humans are born to learn and be social, but we are also born to be active and to move regularly with variety.

The Active Human

Human activity has diminished, on average, since wider agriculture and farming began. This shifted movement “as a need”… to movement for fun or “as sport”. Along with modern comforts and tasks – there has also been a rise in newer health problems, on average, due to lack of movement variety. This comes from the amount of time we tend to spend in cars, sitting at desks, using digital devices, and moving with less variety. Seriously -> when was the last time you walked backwards, did a front tumble, or skipped sideways?.

Modern research is continuing to show a very deep connection between all of the ways a human can move and how the brain wires. This makes it useful to pay attention to how we move, and how our children move.

Development is a dynamic system. It’s NOT nearly as simple as the researchers and pediatricians of our parents’ time thought, with development happening in individual buckets. It’s dynamic and interconnected and there has been a significantly more integrated understanding since the early 1990’s with an even deeper understandings since the early 2000’s as brain imaging tools became more reliable for use with infants and young children, not just adults.

Researchers (2014) have continued to confirm that movement is much more interconnected in the brain than previously thought and still request more research to be done to further show exactly how movement is tied to aspects of cognition.

For instance – movement appears to be tied to language development, and not just the figuring out of how the muscles of the mouth and throat make sound. A study in 2007 showed that in the weeks before babbling starts, infants show an increase in arm movements, leading to the emergence of babbling, and interestingly, after they start babbling, infants stop doing these arm movements as much. The theory is that quick rhythmic movements of the arms are practice loops for the vocal box.

A review in 2010 furthered this understanding by showing that before each typical language milestone, there is usually a change in motor skill. The emergence of new skills then changes a baby’s experience with objects and people in ways that change communication and language acquisition. It’s all connected, and builds on itself.

With every firing and wiring we are able to find new and different ways to fire and wire in the brain! As touched on in FD13, not all firing and wiring is equal. Just as reaching is a very special kind of movement because it is goal oriented – there is another special motion worth noting: bilateral motion.

Bilateral Movements

This is simply a term for anytime a motion of the body crosses the midline of the body or directs towards crossing the midline. This includes reaching across the midline of the body to shake a hand or stabilizing paper with one hand while cutting with the other, or brushing your teeth, putting on a sock or tying a shoe. Even movement of the tongue while chewing and the way the eyes move when reading left to right are considered bilateral.

The reason that good bilateral movement is important is that it’s a foundation for balance and coordination. It is also an indicator that both sides of the brain are communicating effectively and sharing information with each other in order to accomplish tasks smoothly.

A brain imaging study in 2014 of eleven adult males doing a bilateral lower leg task showed greater brain activity during a bilateral task than when not crossing the centerline. They also showed better performance in the crossing center tasks than those that did not cross.

Opportunities to get practice with crossing the midline, both symmetrically and asymmetrically, starts around this time as more intentional movement starts coming online alongside reaching and grasping. If tummy time is a go to in the first 6-9 months, bilateral motions are a staple over the first 3 to 4 years of life – when a child typically masters one bilateral skill after another.

With any progression it takes awareness and practice and activities that encourage your baby to look, move, and reach from one side of the body to the other. Daily crossing strengthens muscles and brain connections, and this even works for adults. One of my favorite research findings to date has been how rapid back and forth (bilateral) eye movements appear to increase creativity.

The Active Dad

In the coming weeks, as your baby moves more, join the journey by building some awareness of your variety of movement, in reaching, in bilateral movement, in balance. Regardless of where you are in the movement game, there are always opportunities for improvement. More importantly, opportunities to learn about ourselves mean having better things to pass on to our children.

As you watch your kids move, start to use this time to move with them. More on Dad Moves in future progressions.

On a related note: Since baby’s are systems of dynamic changes and not silo’s of simple change – it may be helpful to know that development changes also create changes in mood and behavior for short periods. When your baby has a growth spurt (changes to the body that increase a child’s size), they will likely be crankier for a few days. When they learn a new skill or have a visible change in what they can do – it may make for a poor night of sleep or two. All of the learning and growing and development in the first 18-24months is a massive transition for the human body. Fluctuations in mood, eating, sleeping, and behavior are part of that journey. In deconstructing baby behavior, it’s time to move on from just “are they hungry, tired, uncomfortable, overstimulated” to also adding in “did they just grow or learn something new” – and much of this can be seen by observing the changes in how they move.

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

Like Movement? Check out DNS

For the hardcore movement health dad – take a peak at the models coming from the DNS (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization) community lead by the Department of Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Applies to all Humans.

Humans as Remarkable Runners

There are some wild stories about human movement, particularly running. Prior to 1972, women were not allowed to run the Boston Marathon because people truly believed it might cause a woman’s uterus to fall out if they ran that far. Author and Journalist, Chris McDougall’s 2009 book, Born to Run, explores the uniquely human ability to run ultra distances (over 100 miles) at incredible speeds, without getting the routine injuries of most American runners. Here’s a 2011 TEDx talk, by Chris, on the topic [Youtube, 15min 52sec].