Ways to Play
Crawling skills.
Expected Age Range: 7-10 months, or so.
These activities are organized in order of skill acquisition, from beginner crawler to expert crawler.
Demonstrate Crawling
Don’t underestimate the power of demonstration. Baby’s are absorbing information from all around, and that includes watching you. Try getting into hands and knees position and demonstrating rocking and crawling. Encourage your baby to take a turn. You may be surprised by what they do!
Supported Rocking in Quadruped
When your baby begins pushing up onto their hands and knees, lightly place your hand under their tummy. Gently rock your baby forward and backward as they are weight bearing on their hands and knees.
Babies naturally do this rocking forward and backward in quadruped because it helps them create the momentum that they need to unweight a hand or knee to move forward.
By helping them rock with gentle support, they become more comfortable with accepting this weight shift.
Looking Up in Quadruped
When your baby is on their hands and knees, attempt to draw their gaze upward and to the sides by elevating a toy of interest.
At first, this will cause your baby to collapse onto their tummy reflexively. But with practice, they will be able to maintain quadruped while looking around their environment. This is a skill that will be helpful once they begin crawling around their environment.
Transition From Sitting to Quadruped With Support
Sit your baby next to your outstretched leg on the floor. Place one of their favorite toys on the other side of your leg. Shake the toy to encourage your baby to transition out of sitting and over your leg.
Transition From Sitting to Quadruped
Once your baby learns to maintain quadruped on their own, they will also begin to transition into the position from sitting. This can be encouraged simply by toy placement in sitting. Place a toy in front of your baby, and to their side, outside their reach. Your baby will make attempts to transition out of sitting, over their leg, into quadruped.
Quadruped While Unweighting One Hand
In order for your baby to be able to crawl forward, they need to be able to unweight one hand at a time in quadruped.
And in order to do that, they need to be able to weight shift side to side. Help your baby weight shift side to side on hands and knees by placing your hand under their tummy and gently shifting their weight from side to side.
Once they are tolerating this movement with support, you can increase the difficulty. Give them a gentle push at the side of their hip to shift their weight onto the opposite side. Do this back and forth with a predictable cadence.
After some practice, you may notice that your baby feels comfortable enough to unweight one hand at a time.
Playing in Quadruped
Take the pressure off of forward movement, and just enjoy playing in quadruped position. It takes time for your baby to become confident maintaining this position. When your baby is pushing up onto their hands and knees, have a toy available to place directly in front of them that they can play with. They may unweight one hand to play with the toy, challenging their balance and preparing them for forward crawling.
Move One Leg Forward At a Time
If your baby is stable on their hands and knees, but not crawling forward yet, try moving one knee forward 1 inch. Pause and see how your baby responds. If they don’t collapse to the floor, try moving the other knee forward. After your baby has time to process this movement, they may start to move their hands forward in response to their leg being moved.
Advanced Obstacles
Once your baby is able to crawl on a level surface, create an environment that provides opportunities for your baby to explore and negotiate more complex environments. Think about making an obstacle course for crawling through or under, on a variety of surfaces (soft or firm), up and down inclines, and on uneven surfaces.
Some ideas:
Crawling through a tunnel.
Crawling under chairs or a table.
Crawling over a pile of pillows covered in a blanket.
Crawling out of a ring of pillows.
Crawling up onto, and down off of, a couch cushion on the floor.
Crawling up onto your lap.
Crawling over a short but sturdy box covered with a yoga mat, with a toy to get on the other side.
Crawling Up The Stairs
Once your baby masters crawling on a level surface, let them try climbing up the stairs with direct supervision and guarding. Carpeted stairs are ideal. Place a toy on the second step from the bottom and let your baby spend time attempting to problem solve how to go up. This activity prepares babies for pulling up to kneeling and eventually pulling up to stand.