Play mats...how soon do you use them

[moomin35]

How soon after a baby is born would you put them down to lie on a play mat on the floor? I assume "tummy time" comes later when they are more ready to crawl(??) but would you lie them on their back on a play mat fairly early on?

You can do tummy time as soon as you like. If they cry then just flip them back over and try again the next time. We did it quite early.

I used a playmat for my DS when he was a few weeks old, not because I thought he'd play but to look at the colours and mirrors and things whilst I nipped to the loo or had a cuppa!

Use the mat bit as soon as you like as a safe clean place to put them as pp says. Best to avoid the hanging bits for a few weeks (maybe 6-8 weeks) as they can be a bit over stimulating for a newborn.

Every baby's different though, they love them or hate them, contrary souls!

Any time you like. They are useful for announcing "baby here!" to any shortsighted or not very observant visitors

baby lying on it´s tummy on you counts as tummy time . . .

I probably used play mats and bouncy chairs from about 6 weeks. Not much point before then as mine were either feeding or sleeping up to that point!

Tummy time - didn't really at all with DS1 as he didn't like it until he could roll at about 5 months. DS2 is 12 weeks now and I put him on his front occasionally, but probably not every day and only for a few minutes before he complains.

Used them right from the start with my DDs. They provided a convenient place to lay them down.

Forgot to say- I also did a lot of tummy time with my DDs from early on. At first it would only be for very short periods, until they cried, but they gradually built up the time and got better at lifting their head/chest.

I had 2 early crawlers, though, which was nice in some ways but a pain in others!

As others have said, playmat from being a few days old so I could pee/eat etc and tummy time from about 2 weeks old. Mind dd would only sleep on her front so I guess in retrospect she had it from day 1!

We used the playmat from around 6 weeks too. As far as tummy time goes, it was either on us, or on the sofa with me sitting on the floor next to him so we had eye contact as this seemed to make him happier.

We were so PFB with DS that when the midwife asked us to put him on the floor to look at him I was horrified It had never occurred to me to put a baby on the floor, surely it was a far too cold and germy for my delicate child??!!

But when she looked back at me like I was the loon, I opened up my obviously very closed mind and tried it. We bought the lamaze snail mat he lived on it for weeks! Nothing fancy but it was clean, safe and he spent hours kicking around and stretching out. Machine washable was a help as milk and drool gets everywhere.

Only recently a couple of weeks ago, around 12wo?, that he needed more stimulation so we got a play gym mat with the activity arch.

We also put DD on her playmat from very young - probably a few days old. She loved it until she was about seven months.