The one question I'm often asked about babies is, "how do I encourage or teach my baby to crawl?"
Many parents know that crawling is one of the major milestones infants must master. It's a key period when your baby becomes stronger, learn the surroundings, improve visual skills and improve physical abilities.
Crawling is a natural skill most babies automatically master. But many times it just doesn't happen – for a number of really good reasons.
Like babies with poor head control often don't like lying on their stomachs. And good head control is one of the key skills a child must have to learn to crawl. So, if head control is mastered later than normal, following development may also be a bit slower than the norm.
That's when parents usually start to ask around for help to teach their baby to crawl.
It is mostly only professionals who know how to teach babies to crawl. But they still only use a few proven techniques. Most of these tehniques rely on making your baby more comfortable lying on the floor.
But there is one technique that I found to work very well, is safe to try and can be done by all parents.
Over the years I've come to call it the 5P Baby Crawling System. It's a logical 5 Step System to get almost any baby crawling in no time.
Let's look at the 5P steps individually…
P - Put on the carpet. The very first thing any baby must master before there's any hope of learning to crawl… is being comfortable in the tummy lying position. You'll get great results doing this if you talk to and play with your baby when she's on the carpet.
P - Put together a roller. Roll an ordinary bathroom towel into a "sausage". Of course, you can also buy any other type of roller. They're soft cylindrical shaped toys... preferably solid. You do get inflatable ones, but solid ones normally last much longer and can also be used to get teach your child to sit and walk.
P - Position on roller. Gently position the "sausage" under your baby's upper body… arms hanging over the front of the "sausage". The towel "sausage" supports the upper body – NOT her stomach – with her elbows just touching the carpet. It should slightly raise her upper body thereby allowing her to discover the surroundings. Make sure her elbows touch the carpet – they must not be hanging in the air.
P - Position the elbows. Now you've got to do something. Gently hold your baby by the elbows and draw them towards her body. It will almost seem as if your child wants to lie on her elbows. Continue to provide support.
P - Perform in front. This step is the one on which everything else depends. Get down on the floor directly in front of your child and face her. Now, let your baby look at your face while you talk to, amuse and encourage her.
The idea is to encourage your child to endure longer sessions on her tummy. Your baby must focus on you and will then spontaneously develop a sense of using both elbows and legs for support. If it's done right, you'll soon see her supporting herself on both knees and straight arms... ready to crawl.
The power of this 5P System lies in raising your baby's upper body to look at her surroundings... all while lying down.
It also only takes a few minutes daily to start seeing results. Obviously, if you can fit in more than one session per day, results come faster.
The bottom line is... getting your baby crawling is easy and important, but sadly unnecessarily neglected. But anyone can use this 5-Step Crawling System to get results almost like clockwork.
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