How Important Is Tummy Time?
Many new parents today are unaware of the importance of tummy time for their babies, and this is something that I knew very little about as well whenever my daughter was first born. Years ago, parents were told to put their babies to sleep on their stomach, and this was encouraged by many physicians and experts. In fact, whenever I was a baby, my mother put me to sleep on my stomach as well. However, studies have shown that putting a baby to sleep on his stomach greatly increases the risk of SIDS. That is why today parents are encouraged to put their babies to sleep on their backs. By doing this, you are greatly reducing the chances that your baby may suffocate while sleeping.
However, the downside to this is the fact that your baby will need to be given adequate tummy time each day to help develop his neck and arm muscles properly. This is because whenever a baby is on his tummy, he is able to strengthen his neck by raising it off of the ground, and this also will help to develop strength in his arm muscles by pushing himself up over and over again. In general, you will want to give your baby several sessions of tummy time on a daily basis. This can be anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes each time, depending upon how old your baby is and his tolerance for being on his stomach as well. You will find that your baby may in fact hate being on his stomach, which can lead to a bout of crying and screaming. In this instance you will want to try to limit his tummy time and slowly build it up a few minutes each day. In most cases he will eventually stop crying and being so fussy as he gets used to this new perspective of the world.
In general, your baby should start to learn how to roll over from this position by the time he is five months old. However, not all babies reach this milestone at the same time, so if your baby is not rolling over by this age, it is not usually a reason to be concerned. Also keep in mind that your baby may roll over from his back onto his stomach first, which is more difficult to do!
Giving your baby an adequate amount of tummy time each day will also help to lead to other milestones such as sitting up and crawling. So as you can clearly see, this is an extremely important exercise that you must give your baby the opportunity to do each and every day.
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