The Importance of Crawling | LifeScape

The Importance of Crawling

Do you know why crawling is important?

  • Crawling is important for strengthening of the arm/shoulder, core, hip muscles
  • Crawling is important for hand-eye coordination
  • Crawling is important to help your left and right sides of your brain work together
  • Crawling is important to develop reciprocal coordination, which means your body can coordinate left and right sides moving in an alternating pattern
  • Crawling is important to for developing appropriate flexibility and mobility in your spine and rib cage
  • Crawling is important for children to gain the ability to move independently and explore their environment

Some tips for encouraging crawling:

  • Children gain strength and learn skills necessary for crawling while playing on their tummy. Try to include supervised tummy time multiple times per day, every day in your child’s routine from an early age
  • Give your child a safe, supervised place to explore his/her environment
  • Place toys in which your child is interested a few feet in front of him/or to encourage crawling to the toys
  • Avoid baby walkers and minimize time spent in equipment such as exer-saucers, baby seats, and baby carriers