Tummy time fail!

[SallyMischievo]

4 month old DD really doesn't like being on her tummy and will cry after a couple of minutes of being placed on it. I dangle a toy or roll a ball whilst making encouraging noises but she squirms and sobs so I end up rolling her back onto her back or picking her up and giving her a cuddle. Consequently she still can't lie on her tummy with her head held up and I worry that she is not going to be strengthening her neck and shoulder muscles and won't enjoy learning to crawl. We are supposed to be focusing on massaging our baby's back at our baby massage class next week and I just know that DD will kick off! Any tips would be amazing and very gratefully received!

If it makes you feel any better my baby loved it and was a superb tummy tot . She still refuses to crawl at 13 months and shuffles around everywhere on her bum. Government advice about tummy time is to reduce the number of scrotes women who just lay their baby on its back all day and do nowt with it.

The main pro of tummy time for me is not so much learning to crawl etc, but helping to avoid a flat head.

Bear with me - your baby is not going to get a flat head just because they hate tummy time!

But my son developed quite a flat spot when he was a baby, despite being in arms/sling a lot - it's not really visible now but if he was bald might be noticeable. (I think it was because he had a scratch on the other bit of his head during birth and as a result slept in a slightly weird position, always facing his head the same way.) Although I doubt lack of tummy time was a factor, I am quite relieved that my dd actually likes going on her front.

My late mother used to say that all babies should be be issued with a T shirt at birth which says "This Grows Up Automatically"..............

Crawling babies are a nuisance. Actually walking 9month olds are very trying too. I love Hakluyt's mother's idea.

It is really important, I wish there was more info for parents out there about it. It's one of the movements that helps build head and eye control and upper body/ hand strength and control further down the line. I work a lot with older children and families where reading and handwriting needs at seven or eight come from not having built up that physical skill when tiny. Yes your LO will hate it at first - boring, stuck position! And naturally a lot of mums hate upsetting their baby, but in a way that's the natural evolutionary motivator- to get any fun out of that position you have to figure out lifting your head and propping with your hands, and strengthen up your neck and core. Once she starts to learn and realises what she can do she'll start to see the fun in it. Lots of really great advice here like lay her on your tummy or on your lap, or lay down face to face with her, start with really tiny amounts of time (really just seconds) so she doesn't have time to get bored or frustrated, and think about building up the time she can happily play in that position gradually over weeks/ months rather than days. Just helping her start to experience and get comfortable with body contact on her tummy against the floor and learning about lifting her head and eyes against gravity is so good.

Beverley Stokes book 'Amazing Babies' is a good read and she has some great ideas for helping parents and babies enjoy tummy time rather than loathe it.

Thank you ever so much for all your words of wisdom - will give the suggestions a try and stop stressing

It's one of the movements that helps build head and eye control and upper body/ hand strength and control further down the line.

FFS. I'll be sure to mention to DS what he shouldn't be doing as I was such a bad parent.

cough Bollocks cough

Tummy time is the precursor to upper body strength etc etc. But I read somewhere that by 18 months it makes little difference as to who did it and who didn't.

Rumble where did you do your training re that? It's never come up with any of the additional literacy needs stuff I've done (in 15 years). We source most of ours through IoE, dyslexia society and the NHS for SN (as opposed to SEN).

Why can't people just leave babies alone?! (not literally of course)

DS is 16 now, I'm sure tummy time was never mentioned and definitely not demonstrated when he was a baby. Sleeping on the back only was a must at that time. Some of the babies born at the same time as him did develop flattened patches on their heads but he was ok.

I encouraged him to sit unsupported at around 16 weeks or whatever the book on developmental stages said. Before that he always sat in his bouncy chair, we raised the end of it on a box when he was very tiny so he didn't tip forward.

Squizita, Occupational Therapy based work.

My pair hated tummy time, I don't think there's many young babies who enjoy it IME! I had this breastfeeding pillow and it was perfect for putting DD on her tummy / chest with her arms hanging over and a few toys below and she was happy as larry :)

Bollocks.... Yes of course it is, all the professionals who came up with the term tummy time and encourage parents to do this made it up for fun.

You know everytime I put DS on his tummy, he vomited.

Which isn't great when you are massively anxious about weight gain already due to what HV have said when there is clearly nothing wrong and your baby IS gaining weight. So lets hit mothers with another stick and suggest their baby will have learning difficulties if they don't lie on their front.

It IS bollocks.

Unless you can show a connection - not correlation - and without information on relative and actual risk, I'm going to continue to say bollocks.

If it was enough of a risk then we'd all be getting little flyers when we left hospital about how we should lie out baby on its back whilst it was asleep and we should do x amount of minutes on their front during the day.

Strangely we don't get this do we?

So yes its over inflated bollocks. Even professional, yes especially professionals frequently over state risk and put the fear of god into people because they don't have fucking clue how to present risk in order to allow people to make properly informed decisions.

Ah yes, my experience is with milder mainstream issues. But ... I would say if they need OT they're quite an extreme case? Either already prone to the problem in some way or laid flat much, much more than average. Rather than your average kid who didn't like tummy time.

Interesting discussion on the dyslexia aspect. I have recently (ish) done a pg dip in dyslexia and literacy with Dyslexia Action - developmental milestones occurring in an atypical order were often seen when looking back over the development of children who had been diagnosed with dyslexia - NOT because lack of crawling has caused the dyslexia (as pps have said, what a ridiculous and potentially stigmatising suggestion!) but because a significant effect of dyslexia is to affect sequencing ability of the brain; causing difficulties in reading where the sequencing of phonemes is important, difficulties with following multiple instructions, and also manifesting on occasion as alterations in the order of developmental milestones reached including skipping crawling. So this can be (not always) a symptom of dyslexia. Tummy time does not prevent crawling, nor does it cause dyslexia.

Sorry, currently unable to search for articles to back this up but there may well be something linked to through the Dyslexia Action site.

Just thought I'd stick my (mildly experienced) tuppen'orth in...

I always thought that it was particularly important for baby girls as it helped with their hips etc which needed to be strong for future pregnancy and birth. That's what NCT teacher told me. However I was recently at a lecture by an eminent paediatric rheumatologist. He was deeply concerned about the rapidly deteriorating muscle tone in children. He said that that most of "the overweight middle aged mothers" accompanying their children had significantly better muscle torn than their children. It's set for life by 6 years old apparently.

Like other posters say, don't worry too much about it. Once she realises she'll be able to move and has the strength to do so there'll be no stopping her and being on her tummy won't bother her so much. I think it gets very frustrating for them when they're put on their tummy but can't really do anything still, if you see what I mean.
Mine has just sussed out crawling and rolling and now absolutely refuses to be on his back, in his cot or otherwise! Just take it at her pace, you sound like you're doing great and with a little encouragement like you are offering, before you know it, she will have advanced on to the next phase! :)

MakeHay Yes this was my understanding.

Bamboo but surely this has more to do with the extremely sedentary lifestyle most kids have - sitting on sofas (which is the worst thing for muscle tone) as soon as their little backs can, rarely allowed out or to play physically for various reasons? Not sure the NCT birth training covers stuff like tummy time (which would be impossible to test as tummy time babies are not yet of childbearing age). NCT ante natal volunteers aren't medically trained and I think aren't supposed to offer opinions but rather share information - my mum always remembers how hers were aghast when she refused to tummy sleep (hated it) because it was very important and they'd read babies choke on vomit when they back sleep.
Worth remembering just how 'important' and 'proven' front sleep was: it was NOT what was done always before 'back to sleep' - it was part of an active health campaign wrongly used to save lives over a fixed period of time. People really believed it was vital.. It was considered life saving. And it wasn't to do with muscle strength - that was neither here nor there. The logic was babies choked on their backs.
It wasn't done 'on a whim' - but it turns out it was based on limited understanding and did not take everything into account.

Sure wasn't claiming NCT woman was Penelope Leach. Just throwing another idea into the mix.

And yes absolutely the reason this guy was citing was sedentary lifestyle and iPads etc.

I wouldn't stress about what baby is or isn't doing at tummy time, and whether she will lie still on her front at baby massage. The aim of baby massage and other such groups is to bond with your baby and when I went, that was emphasised - it wasn't about hitting any "targets" or being able to do any "moves": it's not the Olympics . Some of the infants just wanted to be cuddled for the whole session and that was ok; mine was hungry and spent a lot of them feeding! I can't see how your baby is moving, OP, but if you are concerned that she isn't able to lie on her front rather than just not keen on the idea of doing it, you could always ask the health visitor or GP to have a look at her in case it's a medical condition. But I really wouldn't worry about tummy time or baby massage. The medical and development books don't list any dire physical consequences of baby not wanting to do tummy time . Some babies just feel more comfortable in other positions, while others prefer doing it later. As long as she is allowed to move about and explore freely when she wants, she'll be fine.

Didn't do tummy time with dd1 and 3 month dd but I spend most of the day with them in my arms or in a sling - absolutely no chNce they would spend most of the day lying on their backs!

Both mine hates tummy time but did spend all their time upright on my shoulder or knee. Both walked early and are fine.

Except for sleep, I'm sceptical that there is much evidence that little babies spent much time lying on their fronts in the past. I just can't think of a time in history where it would have been really practical to spend loads of time with a baby on the floor - my impression is that most of the time babies were wrapped up and kept somewhere where nobody could tread on them.