As an occupational therapist,
parents often ask me what they can do to help their baby learn to roll from
their tummy onto their back. After watching this video,
you are going to know what age babies typically start rolling from their tummy
onto their back. And most importantly,
five key tips that are going to help your baby learn to roll over.
But before we do make sure you click on that free PDF document in the
description box below,
which covers the developmental milestones you should be expecting for your
little one in their first year of life.
This will give you an invaluable piece of mind as you know what to be expecting
and when to be concerned. Also,
if you want to make parenting significantly easier,
make sure you start now by subscribing to my channel where you'll learn the tips
and tricks I've learned over the last 10 years,
practicing as a paediatric occupational therapist and being a mum to two
children. So when the babies learn to roll from their tummy onto their back?
You might notice an involuntary roll happens as early as four weeks of age.
And that is where basically, because your baby is top heavy.
So their head is significantly heavier than their body.
When they kind of tilt their head to the side,
gravity just takes them and rolls them completely from their tummy onto their
back. Purposeful rolling,
which is where your baby actively does that movement can occur anywhere from
four months of age, all the way up to seven months of age.
So if your baby's over seven months of age,
or you just want to help them learn to roll, you can do these five activities.
So the very first activity and most important activity for your baby to do,
to learn, to roll from their tummy to their back is tummy time.
It's really important to give your baby lots of opportunity to do tummy time,
because it is through tummy time that they strengthen their back their neck
muscles and they get that head control, which all help towards rolling.
Now, if your baby finds tummy time difficult,
which I know it can be for a lot of babies, check out my video on tummy time,
where I talk about different techniques that you can use to make it easier for
your baby.
The next activity you can do with your baby is help them roll from their tummy
onto their back.
And this will provide them with an opportunity to get used to the feeling of
rolling from their tummy onto the back and the motor pattern required to do
that. So when your baby's finished tummy time, what you would do,
instead of just picking them straight up off the floor is you would help them
roll over.
So you would lengthen the arm on the side that they're going to roll onto and
then onto their back.
And once at arm is lengthened you just provide support underneath their hips or
their legs and then you would gently start to roll them onto the side.
Once they're on the side,
you can pause there and then gravity will kind of take their body the rest of
the way, or if they're not yet up to that point,
then you can help roll them the rest of the way over.
Now as your baby gets stronger in tummy time, the next thing that they will do,
which gets them one step closer to rolling, is start to shift their weight.
So at three months,
you'll notice that when your baby is on their tummy and they're starting to put
a pressure through their arm.
So they're putting the weight through their forearms when they're on their tummy
time, you'll notice that when your baby turns their head,
they might topple over at that point.
And that's because they've kind of shifted their body weight and then gravity
has taken their body the rest of the way over. What you want,
is around five months of age,
is you want to start to encourage that weight shifting.
So how you would do that is by placing toys directly in front of the baby.
So you'd place the toy just off to the side,
and that will encourage the baby to reach out and grab that toy.
To do that they need to shift their weight onto the arm that's staying on
the floor. Because that frees up the other arm to grab the toy.
That is essentially working on weight shifting and you might notice at that
point again, gravity kicks in and your baby flips onto their back.
When they do flip onto their back,
you need to make sure that you don't have a startled reaction.
And that is because if you are scared,
then your baby may think that movement wasn't pleasant.
They're not necessarily going to like it anyway, but if you do a big yay,
they're going to think it's a fun activity and they won't get so startled when
that accidentally happens. So this leads me on to my fourth tip,
and that is use your baby's vision to help them complete the rest of the
movement.
So after your baby's able to do that weight shifting what you would do with the
toy that you're placing in the opposite corner is that you would start to move
that toy in their line of sight and in an arch.
And that would encourage the baby to follow that toy with their head and then
complete the roll and go the rest of the way over.
Now it's really important when you're doing that weight shifting or using their
vision to encourage them to roll the rest of the way over that you do it in both
directions.
So if you've got the toy on the right hand side and so on the right hand side,
and you're encouraging them to roll that way,
then the next time you would do it on the left-hand side.
And that just ensures that we have equal strength on both sides of the
body. So they're not become extremely dominant in one side.
And that's the only side they roll through. Now,
the fifth tip is to try and limit your use of those baby equipment
items, such as the jolly jumper, the floor seat,
and the exersaucer at this age.
And that is because every time that they spend in those pieces of equipment is
less time that they're spending on the floor in tummy time and working on those
essential muscles required to roll. Now,
I know parents are going to use it because we need time where our hands are
free and our babies are entertained. And that is fine.
Just make sure you can continue to do tummy time activities throughout the day
at every wake period. So that's it parents.
Those are the five key tips that you can do with your baby to help encourage
them to roll from their tummy onto their back.
Make sure you click on that free PDF document in the description box below.
And hopefully I'll see you next week where I'll share more parenting tips.