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All about Crawling

About Crawling

CRAWL BEFORE YOU WALK

Parents look forward to their baby’s first steps, but as the saying goes you “crawl before you walk.” It’s like a caterpillar slowly cracking out of its shell before it can lift off and take its first flight as a butterfly. In the same way, babies must learn to hold up their head, reach with their arms, roll, sit and crawl. These skills provide the foundations for more complex movements and future learning such as a baby’s first step.

Medical professionals and parents often overlook the importance of crawling for babies. Parents rush to skip milestones to quickly reach the desired and exciting skill of walking. For example, babies are often made to sit before they can roll over, or held up to walk before they can come to sit or crawl. This is not best for every child and can impact other developmental areas.

BENEFITS OF CRAWLING:

Gross Motor:
• Increases strength and coordination throughout the body
• Builds neck, back and stomach muscles to sit and stand upright
• Develops cross-crawl patterning- (i.e. right arm moves with left leg, and vice versa). This reciprocal movement pattern lays strong foundations for walking, running, and climbing stairs.

Fine Motor:
• Bearing weight on hands develops arches in the palm necessary to hold and manipulate objects
• Develops shoulder, arm, wrist and thumb stability for writing
• Develops both sides of the body so children learn to cross midline and ac quire hand dominance

Sensory Processing:
• Decreases tactile sensitivities by providing deep pressure input to the hands
• Activates muscles and joints of trunk, arms and legs for body and spatial awareness
• Builds muscles that coordinate breathing for self-soothing
• Development of motor planning (praxis) as child plans how to move their body from point A to B

Academic:
• Improves attention
• Develops communication between both hemispheres of the brain for higher level skills such as reading, speech and communication
• Develops depth perception and binocular vision as child’s eyes learn to focus and move from looking far away to nearby their hands while crawling. These same eye movements are used to throw and catch a ball, read or copy from the board.

Besides not achieving these benefits, other negative effects of not crawling can include being unsteady while walking, slumping forward with body, having a weak pencil grasp or tiring easily.

HOW TO ENCOURAGE CRAWLING?

**These activities require constant supervision from an adult for the child’s safety. If a child has special needs or medical issues, please consult with their medical team first.

• Dress your baby so they can move easily
• Add motivation and necessity so the child themselves must reach, plan and move for desired toys
• Provide your child as much opportunity to move without restrictive devices such as seats, playpens and standers
• While the baby is lying on their belly, have them push off against your hands with their feet to move forward
• Have child sit between an adult’s legs and lunge over them for favourite toys
• Avoid excessive use of walkers or standers which prevent a baby from developing good strength to move around
• Crawl through a tunnel, climb into a large basket (held still by an adult) or ball pool, crawl over obstacles like sofa cushions or adults legs

Conclusion:
There are so many vital benefits of crawling. Children who find it the hardest to crawl need to do so the most for future development of sensory processing, motor and learning skills.

Remember not to prematurely encourage children to sit, crawl or walk as this places excessive physical stress on their spine, bones and muscles and can delay development.

If worried about your child’s development, seek advice from an Occupational Therapist with infant expertise. It’s never too early to get support or treatment and prevent even minor problems from escalating.


Munira Adenwalla, MS, OTR/L
Registered Occupational Therapist
www.ot4kids.co.uk
07540113126