Anyway to encourage crawling?

truhle · October 2010

DS is starting to push up with his legs and get on his knees and elbows. I'm wondering how I can encourage him to start crawling besides just placing his toys away from him--he will usually just ignore them and find something else to play with. He seems to make the most progress while he's by himself on his mat when he thinks I'm not watching. Just wondering if you ladies had any advice--TIA!

maykat · October 2010

You can pull him up to all fours and support him. Putting the toys in front of him (like you are doing) should help.

Also, can he pull himself into a sitting position? If not, you will want to practice getting to a sit position from the tummy (by rolling)

We had to do physical therapy for Aerin (due to her flat head and weak neck muscles)...it was really important for her to crawl, so they worked with her on this with all these exercises.

Also, keep in mind that all kids are different. My son never crawled--he did a one-armed scoot.

slwprincess · October 2010

maykat:

Also, keep in mind that all kids are different. My son never crawled--he did a one-armed scoot.

Gavin also never crawled- he did the butt shuffle. He always hated tummy time but learned to sit really early so I guess he just thought he was supposed to scoot across the floor on his butt. Then one day, he just pulled himself up. And a few weeks later, he took off walking. But if your DS is getting himself into that position, he will probably figure it out in a couple more weeks. Keep doing what your doing with the toys and he'll catch on.

Mrs.Guz · October 2010

He'll crawl when he's ready! My daughter didn't start crawling until she was about 10.5 months and didn't start walking until 17 months. Perfectly healthy, just does things on her own time!