#Crawling at 7mo #milestones

Hi everybody

Thanks for supporting #MamajasWBW, it was a very successful event! Yay to breastfeeding! Today, I am going to write a long overdue, promised article on Play – Playing with bubs with a special focus on helping your child to crawl. Ray has started crawling (since 6mths plus, 7mo) and it is oh so cute! He no longer hates tummytime with a vengeance, and is now little Captain Explorer.

He was crawling around in the bedroom this morning, touching the door frame, bed frame etc, quite the adventurer. The only downer was he woke up at 6.15am to start crawling around in our bed (SOBS). Bye bye beauty sleep. With motherhood, I trade late nights for early morning activities (not a willing participant but no choice! Sighs). Hope you will catch alot of worms in future baby! (not literally, i hope. Mommy’s deathly afraid of creepy crawlies)

So some months back, Pips, Ray and I attended a workshop organized by NUH on how to play with our baby. The name of the workshop was “Let’s Play! Teaching your baby in a playful way.” It was quite an interesting session that taught us developmentally appropriate ways to engage and play with our kids, so that they can learn new skills through play. Learning through play is a topic close to my heart, especially with my work as a former director of a childcare center focused on the Reggio Emillia approach. Follow the child’s lead and see the world through her eyes, and you will be able to engage her and help her to learn in the best possible way!

Onto the topic of crawling – I’ve always known that some babies skip the entire crawling phase altogether and move on to scooting, cruising, walking. However, the rehab therapist encouraged us to help our babies learn to crawl, as it involves some level of coordination on the baby’s part, and can only be good for bubs. Fret not though, if your child doesn’t crawl. Some of us adults never crawled and look how well we’re doing! So don’t stress yourself or bubs for that matter. They can sense our emotions and reject us if the atmosphere is one of tension and negativity! Relax, and enjoy spending time with your baby, that is more important 🙂

Anyway, the way to helping bubs crawl is very simple. Simply put baby’s feet against the wall or use your hands or legs to push against baby’s feet so that baby’s feet are a little bent. When baby kicks against your hands/legs/wall, they will also propel themselves a little forward. It’ll look something like this:

To entice baby to crawl, you can produce a favourite toy in front of him, just a little out of his reach, so that he will lunge for it. You can also place a mirror to let him see himself. Babies just love watching themselves in the mirror!

When baby is more adept at the sport, you can move further back once baby is within reach of the toy, so as to encourage him to continue crawling, which is what I did in the video below:

See how I continually moved backwards until he finally reaches his goal? I gave him mini workable goals, and worked him a little harder by extending the distance between him and what he desires.  It also teaches him to persevere and to work hard to reach an end goal. Of course, if your baby is younger, then there is no need to push him too hard. Do this only if your baby knows how to crawl, and you want to refine his crawling skills (yes, crawling skills can be refined. They can start to commando crawl, crawl on their knees etc, and become more efficient at moving via crawling)

When baby has finally reached a target, do remember to reward your hardworking little explorer with BIG smiles, lots of hurrahs and love, to let him know that it’s a job well done. I just love seeing my little fellow break into a wide grin. Crawling or not, this little guy has completely stolen my heart.

Enjoy this golden time with bubs! The sleepless nights are tough, but remember, they are only infants for one year, and one year passes by too quickly with these little critters around!

Happy crawling!

xox
Jasmine

if you like this article and would like to be kept updated on my other posts, as well as other interesting and useful parenting articles and information to engage your babies, do follow/like me at www.facebook.com/jashuatbaby or click on the Facebook icon on this website! 

By projectjasmine

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