When can you do tummy time with your baby

Tummy Time (for Parents) - Nemours KidsHealth

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD

en español Posición boca abajo

What Is Tummy Time?

Tummy time is laying babies on their stomachs for brief periods while they're awake. It's an important way to help babies strengthen their neck and shoulder muscles, and improve motor skills.

Be sure to stay with your baby and watch closely during tummy time.

What Can Tummy Time Help With?

Tummy time is good for:

Newborns and infants 1–3 months old who are just developing neck control. Tummy time helps develop the muscles they'll need to roll over, sit up, crawl, and walk. Always stay with your baby during tummy time.
Older babies, 4–7 months old. They should still spend some supervised time on their bellies, even if they can roll over and sit with some help. Tummy time helps them practice lifting their head and chest further by straightening their arms. This strengthens arm, chest, and back muscles.
Newborns who have a neck condition called torticollis (tor-ti-KOLL-iss). Tight neck muscles keep the baby from turning their head. Tummy time encourages babies to look around, and along with exercises your doctor will show you, can help your baby's neck muscles relax.
Babies with flat head syndrome (positional plagiocephaly). This happens when babies spend too much time on their backs in the first few months of life. This can cause a flat spot, either on one side or the back of the head.

How Do I Do Tummy Time?

Newborns

Start newborns on tummy time by placing them belly-down on your chest or across your lap for a few minutes at a time, two or three times a day. While lying on their belly, they can practice lifting their head and strengthening the neck and shoulder muscles. As your baby gets used to it, you can go for a little longer.

Older Babies

Place a blanket down in a clear area on the floor. Place your baby on their stomach on the blanket for 3–5 minutes to start, several times each day. Your baby may get fussy and frustrated in this position. Keep the first sessions of tummy time brief and gradually lengthen them. It's also a good idea to do tummy time when your baby is fed, changed, and happy.

As your baby gets used to it, place your little one belly-down more often or for longer periods of time. Experts recommend that babies work up to about 1 hour of tummy time a day by the time they're 3 months old.

Make some noises or shake a rattle to get your child to look up and push up. Place a favorite toy in front of your baby to encourage reaching and forward movement.

Babies With Torticollis or a Flat Spot

This exercise is good for babies with torticollis and/or a flat spot, and can help treat both problems:

Lay your baby on your lap for tummy time. Position your baby with their head turned away from you. Then, talk or sing to your baby. Encourage your little one to turn and face you. Do this exercise for 10–15 minutes.

What Else Should I Know?

Always stay with your baby during tummy time.
Always place babies on their backs (never on their bellies) to sleep to help prevent SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome).
Do tummy time on a low, safe surface. Don't put your baby on a sofa or bed, where they could roll off or suffocate on pillows or a soft surface.

If your baby doesn't seem to enjoy tummy time, add some variety. Sing songs, keep colorful toys nearby, get down on the floor and eye-to-eye with your baby, and have others join you. Don't give up! Tummy time is important, and some babies just need a little extra time to get used to it.

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD

Date reviewed: October 2019

Tummy Time | When to Start Tummy Time – Happiest Baby

By Dr. Harvey Karp, MD, FAAP

Tummy Time

Tummy time is an important part of an infant's routine. In fact, recent research found that tummy time was positively linked to gross motor development, total development, plus the ability to move while prone or supine (which includes crawling and rolling). Regular tummy time also helps your little one strengthen build up her muscles and become better at moving...which helps reduce the risk of sudden infant death.

Establish Safe Sleeping Habits Before Starting Tummy Time

Routinely putting a baby to sleep on the stomach raises her risk of SIDS about four times. But SIDS risk jumps even higher (eight to 37 times!) when young babies (under 4 months) are put to sleep on the back…but accidentally roll to the stomach.

Of course, sooner or later, your baby will roll onto her stomach during sleep. So what should you do to protect her?

For at least the first 4 months, always put your baby to sleep on the back snugly swaddled with white noise playing nearby. The sound will keep her calmer (less likely to fidget and roll), and the swaddling will make it harder for her to flip over. (FYI, Happiest Baby's SNOO Smart Sleeper is the only baby bed that prevents accidental rolling, via its clip-in swaddle. It also keeps your baby calm, by intelligently providing the right level of white noise and womb-like motion to soothe fussing. )

When to Start Tummy Time

While you can begin tummy time as early as the first day you bring your baby home, by the time your baby reaches one month, it's time to begin daily exercises to help her strengthen her neck and back. That will help her develop the ability to move her face out of a blanket or mattress in case she accidentally rolls to the stomach.

The key to starting tummy time is making sure that both you and your newborn are awake and alert and you’re constantly supervising.

How to Do Tummy Time Exercises

Once or twice a day, hold your baby upright in your arms with her head resting on your shoulder and her belly against your upper chest. Allow her to practice lifting her head, as you gently support her neck and head with your hand.

Place your baby with her tummy and face down on a sheet to give her practice moving her head and getting her nose and mouth free. (Supervise her closely, and never leave her alone on her stomach. ) The first few times, you may need to help by lifting her head a tiny bit and showing her how to swing her face to the side.

When your infant is 2-3 months old, place your hand under her chest during the tummy exercise to lift her a tiny bit and help her start learning how to use her arms to push up.

These exercises will teach her how to free her face by arching her back and lifting her head, in case she accidentally flips over in sleep.

How Long Should You Do Tummy Time For?

Start by doing tummy time once or twice per day for 3 to 5 minutes. As your baby gets older (and stronger!), you can ramp up the number of tummy time sessions and duration. Pretty soon your baby will be able to roll over on her own!

Final Thoughts on Tummy Time

Don’t stress if your baby hates tummy time. If you’re finding it challenging to keep your baby engaged, then take a break from tummy time exercises for a couple of days or even a week. Shortening tummy time sessions and spacing the exercises throughout the day will make it more bearable for your little one. Remember, some tummy time is better than no tummy time.

About Dr. Harvey Karp

Dr. Harvey Karp, one of America’s most trusted pediatricians, is the founder of Happiest Baby and the inventor of the groundbreaking SNOO Smart Sleeper. After years of treating patients in Los Angeles, Dr. Karp vaulted to global prominence with the release of the bestselling Happiest Baby on the Block and Happiest Toddler on the Block. His celebrated books and videos have since become standard pediatric practice, translated into more than 20 languages and have helped millions of parents. Dr. Karp’s landmark methods, including the 5 S’s for soothing babies, guide parents to understand and nurture their children and relieve stressful issues, like new-parent exhaustion, infant crying, and toddler tantrums.

View more posts tagged, behavior & development

Have questions about a Happiest Baby product? Our consultants would be happy to help! Connect with us at customercare@happiestbaby. com.

Disclaimer: The information on our site is NOT medical advice for any specific person or condition. It is only meant as general information. If you have any medical questions and concerns about your child or yourself, please contact your health provider.

How to communicate with a child during pregnancy

When expecting a baby, expectant parents often ask themselves whether it is necessary to communicate with the child while he is still in the tummy, does it make any sense at all? Our perinatal psychologist Oksana Brezhneva explains why it is necessary and how best to do it.

Why should I communicate with my baby during pregnancy?

From about 8-10 weeks, the baby's senses are actively developing, and he is able to respond to your touch, warmth, pain, vibration.
By 18-20 weeks, he already has character traits, and facial expressions are able to convey emotions. Brain activity develops quite actively, the baby hears and perceives what is happening in the outside world.
By the 24th week, the vestibular apparatus is well developed and the baby is able to control his movements, take a comfortable position, express dissatisfaction and experience positive emotions.

There is no doubt! The kid, developing, feels everything and is waiting for your communication with him!

With regular communication with the child throughout the pregnancy (which proceeded as comfortably as possible for the mother, without stress and worries), emotionally healthy, calm, balanced children are born. Sometimes children themselves can ask for attention from their parents, wanting to be talked to and caressed, while becoming more active and mobile. Studies confirm that children with whom their parents talked in the womb, after birth, react more actively to the voices of their parents, cry less, calm down faster, and begin to develop earlier.

How to communicate with the baby?

To establish contact with the baby in the mother's tummy - observe his activity, remembering what time of the day he is more mobile. At such moments, talk with the baby, tell him about what you like, about what beauty awaits him in this World. Mom can tell what kind of dad the baby has and how he loves him and takes care of him, and dad can tell about mom, because the child hears the voices of his parents in different ways (mother's vibrations from the inside, and dad's vibrations from the outside). Conversations with the baby in the womb should be very tender and sincere.

Choose a way to address your little one so that he knows and gets used to the fact that this is how you talk to him. It is recommended to communicate with the baby for at least 15 minutes daily. Over time, you will notice that he answers you and pushes exactly in the place where you hold your hand.

A child in the womb, constantly hearing his mother's voice, will know that she is near, that she remembers him and is always ready to tell him something affectionate and tender. Such communication allows you to establish an emotional connection with the child during pregnancy and contributes to a better contact of parents (especially mothers) with the baby after he is born.

Show your child that he is long-awaited and dearly loved by both parents, because the baby feels and hears everything while still in his mother's tummy! And remember, it's never too late to start talking to your child!

Perinatal psychologist Oksana Sergeevna Brezhneva receives in two branches of the Health Territory - on the Oktyabrsky field and on Tulskaya.

Communication with the future child

When should I start communicating with my child?

Parable

“Mom and dad came to the wise man, who had a baby and who was only 5 days old. The parents of the newborn asked the sage a question: “Tell me, please, when should we start raising our child?”

To which the sage replied: you are exactly nine months and five days late.

You should start talking to your baby as soon as you find out you are pregnant. And very often it happens that it has not yet been confirmed, and you already feel that a new life is born inside you, you feel a small heart in your heart. When you talk together, look at nature, beautiful things, your hearts communicate, and at this moment there is that connection that we call blood, with which you will always understand your child without words!

Ways of communication with the unborn child

1. Physical contact

Establishing a connection with the intrauterine baby through touching the mother's abdominal wall, stroking the tummy.
Such communication will help you establish an emotional connection with the child during pregnancy and teach you to understand the state of the child by his movements. In addition, communication with a child before birth helps to reduce a pregnant woman's feelings of fatigue, anxiety and fear, as well as conscious childbirth and easy child rearing.

Babies who feel contact with their mother during fetal development are born calmer, cry less and worry at night.

In further development, the child adapts better at school, is not afraid of new situations, does not conflict with others and easily joins the team. In a word, they are more social in society and successful in life.

2. Music

Currently, scientists have proven that listening to quality structured music by a mother during pregnancy strengthens the child's neurons, promotes the formation of a close functional connection between the hemispheres of the brain. As a result, children have a greater ability to learn, to master reading, foreign languages. They have a very finely developed ear for music.
The best thing that mom should listen to during this period is Mozart, Vivaldi, Liszt.

3. Tips for parents: “How to talk to a future child?”