Infant and Toddler Brain Development - Tummy Time

Article by Marcia Jones, CMA

 As parents, we can nurture our growing baby through the simple act of placing our baby on their tummy on the floor during play time. Tummy time is a significant part of a baby’s quest to learn independent locomotor movement. Your baby learns how to move by exploring gravity through yielding to it and learning to push against it. Just like astronauts who need to relearn how to walk after being in zero gravity in space, your baby needs to feel gravity and master it first as a non-mobile newborn, next as a four- legged creature (belly crawling, then creeping), then later as a two-legged one. All of these stages are important for

a healthy, happy child. Movement is functional and expressive for your baby, so as they become more independent in their body actions, their social and emotional development will mirror this. Moreover, when parents get down on the floor and move along with their baby, this helps parents to observe, listen and learn from their own and their baby’s experiences.

When I was a new parent, I was anxious for my daughter to reach certain milestones such as sitting up on her own or walking. The chat and praise amongst parents was often focused on whose baby had crawled or taken their first steps before all of the other same-age babies! We can inadvertently push our babies along, trying to facilitate these developmental milestones by using seats and toys that prop our babies upright before they have the strength and efficiency in movement in order to support themselves in a sitting or standing posture. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, an expert in developmental movement and the founder of the School for Body-Mind Centering, says that a child who is rushed through the developmental sequence has to compensate too much in their bodies. This can affect their muscle tone as an adult and their ease in transitions from lying to sitting to standing. Moreover, babies make vital brain connections through their body movements at these different levels. When you baby is lying on their back or tummy, the lower brain is active. As your baby shifts weight and is able to sit up or crawl, the mid brain becomes active. Once your baby can stand, the higher brain functions are all developing. The sequencing and timing of the wiring of each area of your baby’s brain is optimized when your baby is allowed to master their body movements on their own time schedule.

In Babies First Brain Dance and Parent and Toddler Creative Brain Dance classes, we interact with the children on the floor and learn along side them. We practice age appropriate movement in a fun and socially stimulating environment. A baby’s physical, emotional and social development is unique to them and in these classes, we support each child no matter where they are along this pathway. Even babies with special needs can benefit from the classes as we honour and nurture their individual growth patterns. Throughout the series of classes, the process also brings awareness and corrections to our own body patterning as we play and explore developmental movement with our little ones. 

To read more about Marcia Jones please visit the Babymoon Parenting website.