Remember Baby Bink, the cute little toddler in Baby’s Day Out, he made every woman and man on this earth go gaga over him and his boo-boo. When the big city called, he had to answer and he did that through crawling. He spent one full ‘adventurous’day around the big city of Chicago, crawling. Crawling looks cute, right? But do you know, crawling is any baby’s first step towards the world, outside his cradle, independently. Let us know more about crawling.
What is crawling?
Crawling is the process of moving forward the limbs; hands, knees and legs by dragging the body on the ground. Infants crawl and this is how they start to move, that too without any external help. Crawling is the way an infant becomes a toddler.
When to expect your little one crawling?
Crawling, for a baby, is the foremost step towards independent mobility. Through crawling, baby is able to open her world up to millions of new discoveries by getting around. By this, she transports herself. The process of crawling generally starts when the baby is seven to ten months old. Crawling is not a one-day process, in fact, crawling evolves day by day, therefore, the process is explained in phases. Babies slowly learn to crawl through five following distinct steps:
- Classic crawl happens when the baby moves, keeping the alternate limbs on opposite sides (for example, left hand on one side and right knee on the other side).
- Crab crawl occurs when the baby bends one of the two knees and spreads the opposed leg to scoot forward.
- Commando crawl is when the baby actually acts like a commando on the field, lying flat on the belly and dragging the body using arms.
- Rolling wonder crawl makes the baby move (and crawl) while rolling on the ground.
- No crawling: Some babies do not crawl at all. They walk straight away.
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Crawling helps your child greatly. Let us find out how.
Benefits of Crawling
Every paediatrician on earth agrees that crawling is an indispensable element of a child’s development. It has certain benefits that every parent should know so as to encourage this natural developmental process.
- Baby explores: As it happened in the case of Baby Bink, your baby too is inquisitive and snoopy of the world, he needs to satiate his hunger to know more about the newfound world.
- Baby can connect: As the baby crawls, she needs you around her for the messages she relies on, through your gestures and facial expressions. This way she connects with you and the mother-baby bond gets strengthened more.
- Baby learns to navigate: Through crawling, baby can soon learn the layout of the room or the house (if he is allowed to cross room borders!). This will boost his cognitive abilities.
- Baby is exercising: Crawling helps baby tone her muscles and also helps her body attain a proper shape.
- Baby will have stronger back and abdominal muscles.
- Baby is able to notice his surroundings more with this new taste of independence.
Helping your baby explore crawling
A mother (or whosoever takes care of the baby) must ensure that she is getting plenty of time to practise crawling, but whatever she tries to learn,she must be carefully supervised. When the baby is in her initial days of crawling she should never be left unassisted. Another way of helping your baby crawl is to make her movement safe.
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It is important for the parents to make their home childproof so as to make the space harmless for the newly mobile kid. Look no further to know more about a few tips on keeping your house childproof:
- Cover baby’s body parts that are going to get rubbed while he crawls. Cover his legs and knees using comfy pants or leggings. This will help the baby stay safe from painful scratches or rug-burns.
- Remove any form of hurdle or hazard from the anticipated path that the baby is going to cover through crawling.
- Gate the stairs from the top and bottom ends, but make sure that you leave a few steps from the floor for if the baby learns to climb up and come down the stairs and he flips, he is not far from the ground. After all, this is how they are going to learn moving on the stairs. Just keep an eye on him.
- Lay mats or rugs on the floor which provide a cushion to the belly during tummy time.
- Guide the baby using simple words like ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘go’, ‘back’ and ‘stop’. Use facial expressions which he understands, to lead him.
- If the baby climbs in an undesired area, gently remove him and remind him using facial expressions and words that this is not the area she should opt for climbing. You can escort her to a much safer place to climb, like a pile of cushions on the floor so that the baby gradually understands where to climb (like soft areas) and where not (like hard furniture).
- Keep the floors clean and dirt free. Babies have this habit of putting anything and everything in their mouth.
- A useful tip: Get down in the crawling position (on your two arms and two legs), start crawling and look for the hurdles and troubles you think your baby might get while moving. Remove them.
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Delayed Crawling
If this is the case with your baby, you should not worry at all, provided that the baby’s other developmental areas like motor skills, social interactions, learning ability and language is not abnormal. Otherwise, you must bring your worries to the paediatrician. Also, bear in your mind that it is not at all necessary that your otherwise normal baby has to be a crawler and he who crawls early walks early. Just motivate your child to move and stretch her arms and legs, as simple as that.
After all, parent’s inspiration and encouragement can do wonders for the children.
Go, baby go!
Image Courtesy: geniusbabyshopm, contentful, blogspot.