Strengthen your baby's abdominal muscles!

You’ll find that your infant is changing rapidly during their first year of life. At this time, most will start developing strong abdominal muscles, learn to crawl, sit up on their own, and some may even start to walk. There are many activities you can do to encourage abdominal muscle strengthening in an infant, most of them are routine or just natural for an infant to do on their own. Still, any activity meant to improve 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. During Tummy Time, simply place your baby on a flat, low, safe surface - this means avoiding beds or high up places, to prevent any nasty falls or other accidents. This activity can be started as early as a few weeks after birth. A few minutes several times per day is great to slowly build muscle strength in the abdomen. Always be sure to supervise tummy time and help your child when needed.

Advanced Tummy Time

The more your baby continues to grow, the more advanced tummy time can become. You should start encouraging your baby to raise their head, or try standing up using special toys or equipment made for this type of muscle training. Shake a noisy rattle just out of the baby's eyesight so that they have to move their head or chest in order to see it. Try doing it directly above them so they try to reach up, or to the left or right side of them so they come towards you or try to reach out. We recommend cylindrical toys or other similarly shaped objects meant for babies to rest on with their tummies. These objects can encourage the baby to engage their abdominal muscles in different ways to maintain their balance.

Crawling

Crawling is a milestone that your 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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