Strengthen your baby's abdominal muscles!

Infants change rapidly during the first year of life. Many will develop strong enough abdominal muscles to roll over, sit up, crawl and even walk. There are many activities you can do to encourage abdominal muscle strengthening in an infant. Many routine activities parents do with babies can strengthen baby's abdominal muscles. Activities for improving muscle strength should be fun for your baby.

Tummy Time
Tummy time is the most common and simple activity you can do to strengthen your baby's abdominal and back muscles. This exercise requires simply that the baby be placed tummy down on a safe surface, such as the floor, and not a soft bed or area where the baby could fall. This activity can be started as early as the first few weeks of life. A few minutes several times per day is sufficient for gradually increasing muscle strength. Always supervise your baby during tummy time.

Advanced Tummy Time
As an infant ages tummy time can be taken to a more advanced level. You can encourage the baby to raise her head or torso from the floor by using enticing toys. Shake a noisy rattle just out of the baby's eyesight so that she has to move her head or chest in order to see it. You can do this directly above her or off to the right or left side. We suggest cylinder toys or other similarly shaped objects meant for babies to rest on with their tummies. These objects can encourage the baby to engage her abdominal muscles in different ways to maintain her balance.

Crawling
Crawling is a milestone that a baby will reach sometime between six months of age and a year but every child is different. Encouraging crawling can further strengthen the baby's abdominal muscles. We suggest piling pillows slightly to give the baby a more unstable and difficult surface to crawl over. This activity can make the muscles work harder.

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