Do babies actually NEED tummy-time?

[IcouldstillbeJoseph]

DD (now 23 wks) is suffering from second-child syndrome I.e she spends a fair bit of time in bouncy chair, or on her back on activity mat whilst I try and prevent 2yr old DS from killing himself. She is not rolling over yet and I was thinking this morning she doesn't really have any tummy time at all.
She is a happy, contented baby and her head shape is fine. Am I harming her by not doing tummy time? She really objects if I do try it - about 30 secs is about her maximum threshold.

It's because babies sleep on their backs now, apparently this gives them less chance to develop those muscles and there were problems emerging.

However being carried upright in arms, carried in a sling, held on your chest, etc, all helps this development. The advice is really aimed at parents wholliterally leave their babies in cots, car seat, buggy, bouncy chair etc ALL DAY. I wouldn't worry overly. If you really want to do it I used to prop DS up on a rolled up towel or folded cushion, under his chest with arms in front, especially if he could look at a mirror or something with flashing lights. He'd be happy for 5 minutes at least!

What problems?

My DD hated tummy time. Would not lie on her front for more than 10 seconds without screaming.

She sat completely unaided at 23 weeks and had brilliant head control from tiny. Though she never rolled over until she was 9.5months and the same day she first crawled.

Wrist muscle development was what I read, but this was ages ago. I couldn't give you a source And flat head syndrome, obviously.

When my son was born there was a huge back to sleep campaign and no one had heard of tummy time. There was also a huge campaign to get parents to use proper car seats. The result of this was that some babies never got to spent time on their fronts. Children started crawling later on average and there were more cases of flat heads.

I think its important to minimise the amount of time that children spend in carseats. I hate when people use their carseat as a pram. The baby cannot wriggle in a carseat.

Rather than avoiding tummy time, its better to look at ways of making it pleasent. I think that using breastcrawl to initate breastfeeding with a newborn in the early days helps headcontrol. Or biological nuturing as a breastfeeding position at least once a day.

If a baby associates lying on their tummy with food and a cuddle from mummy then they are less adverse to it. No one likes lying on the ground with their face in the carpet. If you are a little baby it is pretty scary not being able to see mummy.

hedwig2001 From my personal experience I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference - out of my 3 DC the 'bum shuffler' was the only one who didn't scream fit to burst when put on her tummy! She started to walk around 13 months. The other 2 hated tummy time so much that I stopped doing it but they were both crawling at 7/8 months.