The Play Space

Pre-crawling skills.

Keep it simple with these three basic considerations for the play space.

• 1. Create height.

  In order to create an environment that encourages pre-crawling skills, consider obstacles with height for your baby to army crawl over.

  Your leg, a pillow, or a couch cushion are great options.

  By bringing your baby’s gaze and attention up from the floor, they will want to push up through their hands, and eventually up onto hands and knees.

  This helps babies progress from army crawling to hands and knees crawling.

• 2. Create distance.

  By now you should be playing with your baby in larger areas with space to explore.

  This is going to be vital for pre-crawling skills. Think about creating more distance between your baby and their toys. And, distance between you and your baby.

  This will give them an opportunity to problem solve how to mobilize and get to what they want.

• 3. Non-slip surface with bare knees and toes.

  Whenever possible, let your baby practice pre-crawling activities with their knees and toes exposed on a non-slip surface.

  Traction is your baby’s friend when it comes to getting up onto hands and knees. My favorite place to practice quadruped is on a yoga mat.

  A blanket on a hardwood floor is not going to cut it. Try to avoid footy pajamas or socks, too.