Category: Environment

Submitted by guest blogger Ruth OT 

I meet so many parents who are concerned about their children’s motor or sensory processing skills who tell me their child never 4-point crawled, or did so only briefly. They proudly tell me how their child was ahead of their motor milestones and walked early, and never realise how important crawling is.

What is so special about crawling?

In crawling, the baby supports their weight on their hands and arms, this works wonders for developing shoulder girdle stability and proprioceptive awareness of the hands and arms which is foundational for fine motor skills like handwriting, fastening clothing, threading, sewing, crafting etc. Crawling also requires the baby to hold their core flat and stable off the ground, developing core stability against gravity. It also puts the baby’s neck into extension (ie bent back so that the baby is looking forwards not at the ground), this activates areas of the brain stem and supports baby’s developing understanding of their relationship with gravity and thus vestibular processing.

But what good is telling you all this now if your baby wasn’t a crawler? My youngest child was a very proficient bum shuffler, he could get anywhere over any surface (but not steps!) very quickly shuffling along on his bum. If I put him into the tummy time position, he just laid there and cried until I sat him up. I knew crawling was important for his development and that bum shufflers are late to walk, but I couldn’t make him do it once he’d learned a really efficient way to get where he was going!

So now that he’s a confident walker, we’re going back to crawling activities, and I thought I’d share some of the activities we do without any extra equipment at home to get those crawling benefits…

Going back to crawling…

• Climbing! There’s a lot of motor planning and problem-solving in this as well, depending on where you climb. Over rocks, up muddy hills, up slides (you will get looks from other mums), in soft play, anywhere where they need to use their hands to support their movement is good by me
• Cars and small world toys- some kids I know will squat down on their feet and use their hands to play, if this is your kid try setting up a small world where the kid has to reach far enough that they have to support their weight with their hands to reach the middle.
• Big floor art, floor puzzles etc. We love messy art at the best of times, but if you can get a roll of lining paper on the floor to do your art on, you can work on shoulder girdle stability, prone extension and motor planning while you do it.
• Tunnels, those pop up tunnels you can get for kids are great for encouraging crawling (you can’t bum shuffle through one, we speak from experience!)
• Ball pools, he loves falling face first in them and then crawling back to standing up.

Ditch the train tables, lego tables and tuff tray stands. I know they make tidying up easier and are more comfy for parents, but playing on the floor is about so much more than the game.