Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Tummy Time Explained

Tummy Time: a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted upon the infant human by their gang boss parents. Adverse effects include but are not limited to kicking, screaming, crying, red faces, or giving up on life (See Box 1-A).

What Tummy Time Really Is: With babies spending more time on their backs, pediatricians have noted an increase in cranial asymmetry, or misshapen heads. Babies' skulls are still somewhat soft, and constant back positioning with no break can sometimes cause a flattening effect on the back of the head.

Tummy time literally gets babies off their backs. It provides a break for the occipital area, or back of their heads, and gives babies a chance to strengthen their neck muscles to prepare them for crawling. It also helps them to get ready to push up, roll over, sit up, and eventually stand. (Get some Tummy Time Tools!)

Box 1-A

We are still working on Tummy Time, and slowly making progress, however it's hard to get it done when she eats so often and spits up anything once she's on her stomach. Also, the screaming and crying are kind of a downer. Sigh. I guess I get a Bad Mom award this year.

5 comments:

  1. Clay had the same fun tummy time experience. I, too, felt like mother of the year each time I told our pediatrician, "Oh yeah, we do tummy time every day." Right....For like one minute! He screamed the whole time. Amazingly, his head is fine, he learned to crawl and we all survived. You'll make it through- it does get progressively easier as they get stronger and not so frustrated. This too shall pass (and then you'll have a crawler on your hands!)

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  2. i feel your pain...i dont like to lay on my tummy either...

    Laila tolerates it for..oh...about 12 seconds and then screams like nothing I have ever heard...

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  3. Welcome to the bad mommy club... Ha! Wait till she is a teenager!

    Try putting her pacifier and toys about 4 inches in front of her and then get down on your tummy and talk to her and show her the toys... eventually it will be a game to how fast can I reach those things, and not the screaming... in the meantime, welcome mommy!

    You know who!

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  4. I think almost every baby hates tummy time! Elisa sure wasn't a fan. I got her a tummy time boppy (like the regular one, but smaller and with a few toys). I think that helped a little because it supported her under her arms until she was strong enough to support herself. Don't stress about tummy time, though! She'll turn out just fine.

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  5. You are not a bad Mom, it's just not always easy hearing the little one fuss and cry. I know that I'm not a Mom but when I nannied for little babies it was always hard to hear them fuss and cry. It will get better. Maybe try getting down on her level, so you are distracting her. Hang in there!

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