My baby daughter is four months old. Because it has been recommended that babies be put to sleep on their backs, I am interested in finding some "tummy-time" activities for my baby when we are playing together.
It sounds like you are interested in offering your baby a full range of options for exploring her physical development and coordination. It also sounds like you want to spend some floor time with your daughter. Both of these are wonderful ideas. She is at a stage of development where her awareness and control of her body is really expanding. Your interest in and responsiveness to her are also very important to her right now.
4 tips to help support your baby's development:
1. Offer your baby the most unrestricted motion possible. There are differing opinions about how best to support an infant's physical skills. Magda Gerber, an expert on infant development and coauthor of Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child's Natural Abilities from the Very Start, advocates putting babies in the least restrictive position possible. If you practice (as an adult) lying on your back and on your front, you will probably discover, like most babies do, that lying on your back offers you the most opportunity for movement. If you watch a baby on its back, it is really quite amazing to see all of the muscles she uses, bringing her feet up, twisting, raising her head off the ground, reaching across herself with her arm, arching her back. Gerber's philosophy teaches that babies don't need to be put on their tummies until they learn to turn over from their backs themselves. Obviously, putting babies on tummies some during waking isn't going to hinder them, but it is interesting to watch how much more freely they can move on their backs.
2. Give your baby plenty of floor time. While putting babies on the floor is contrary to many of our previous customs, it is one of the best ways to support both physical skills and the development of a baby's sense of competence. Babies who spend time on open, clean, safe, flat surfaces, free of infant seats or other restrictive carriers, have the opportunity to learn about their bodies in space. They get to learn what positions they can get themselves into and out of. They develop the muscles they need for their next developmental challenge. Babies who are playing on the floor are strengthening all of the muscles they will later need to roll over, sit up and crawl. Babies who are crawling on their own are exercising the muscles they will later need for walking. Limiting the amount of time babies spend in car seats, infant carriers, swings, chairs and other restrictive containers allows babies to have lots of time to develop their muscles, skills and body awareness. It's amazing to note that babies develop beautifully without ever being in a swing or carrier and that certain carriers, which hold an infant's body in a position it isn't yet ready to be in, may actually impair an infant's physical development.
Just as important as physical development is the development of a baby's sense of competence. Having the opportunity to learn how to make one's body do something new gives an infant the idea, I can do it! and the confidence to keep trying new things.
3. Get down on the floor with your baby. In spending floor time with your baby, you can just watch and see what your baby does, where she looks, how she moves. You can see the world from her perspective. You could sing with her or talk to her. Just being on her level allows her to communicate with you using all the subtleties of her nonverbal, as well as verbal communication.
4. Support your infant's achievements. Every parent wants to do the best job they can supporting their baby's growth. Rather than buying lots of expensive equipment, what babies really need is our attention, observation and our responsiveness. In the first year of life, babies are learning trust. They are figuring out that the world is a place where they will get their needs met, where they can make things happen and where they can explore safely. Our job is not to "teach" them these things so much as to get to know them, to enjoy them, to provide safe and interesting learning spaces, to learn their unique communication systems and to be responsive to them.
