Have you been wondering what you can be doing to help your baby learn how to sit?
In this video I’m going to show you 7 activities you can do to have your baby mastering the
developmental milestone of sitting independently.
If this is our first time meeting, I’m Dr. Belousov.
I equip parents with knowledge so they can care for their baby with confidence.
This video is a part of my baby development series.
Some of the other videos will be linked at the end of this one.
Most babies will sit on their own without support by around 6 to 7 months.
But you can start doing activities that will prepare your baby for sitting as soon as your
baby is able to hold the head up well without your support, which happens around 3 to 4
months.
Before being able to sit, your baby will need to work on strengthening the neck, back and
core muscles.
Tummy time is the best activity to be doing consistently on a daily basis to help strengthen
those muscles.
By the age of 4 months, try to have your baby doing tummy time for around 80 minutes, split
up into several sessions throughout the day.
If you need suggestions on how to get your baby doing tummy time and enjoying it, I have
a separate video on that.
It’s linked up here.
It’s helpful to work on strengthening your baby's head control and core muscles in preparation
for teaching your baby to sit.
An activity to do is lay your baby on his back on a firm flat surface.
While holding onto your baby’s arms, gently start pulling him into a sitting position.
Do it slowly to give him the opportunity to engage his muscles and do some of the work
of getting himself into the sitting position.
Gently lower him back down and repeat this activity several more times as your baby tolerates.
Once your baby is holding his head up well on his own, you can also start to have him
sitting at a more upright angle in the stroller and sitting up supported in your lap.
An activity you can do is to sit her on the floor between your legs, with her back supported
against your body.
Distract her with a toy that you are holding at the level of her hands.
Then you can move it up to her eye level to get her engaging her core and back muscles
as she sits up more to follow the object with her eyes.
Continue to move the toy higher while she is watching it to work on strengthening her
neck, back and core muscles.
If your baby is falling forward during this exercise, place one of your hands on her belly
to support her until she is able to sit up better on her own.
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Once your baby is tolerating sitting up while being supported for longer periods of time,
you can surround her with pillows or a boppy pillow, while you are close by and watching.
As your baby gets better at sitting up supported with pillows, you can transition to letting
her sit leaning forward and supporting herself with her hands on the floor.
This is called the tripod position.
Most babies will be able to sit independently in the tripod position by 6 months of age.
We expect that the baby will only be sitting independently for several minutes at a time
initially.
At this age it’s common for babies to still be toppling over from the sitting position
from time to time.
Once he masters sitting in the tripod position, start to do the activity of holding a toy
up by his hands or in front of him around eye level to get him to lift his hands up
and work on strengthening the core and back muscles as he supports himself by sitting
upright.
To work on improving your baby’s balance, here is an activity that you can do.
Sit her on your lap facing you.
Have your hands under her arms or above her waist for support.
To turn it into a fun game, as you are leaning her back or to one of her sides, lean towards
the baby and say “I’m going to get you.”
Sit her back up and then repeat this activity multiple times.
Just like mastering any skill set, it will take weeks for your baby to progress from
sitting with support, to being able to sit by supporting himself with his hands on the
floor, or the tripod position, to then finally being able to sit independently.
I want to briefly mention baby gear, because in our day and age it’s so prevalent and
readily used.
Although various baby gear is very convenient for holding your baby while you work on getting
things done throughout the day, try to have your baby spending as much time playing on
the floor as possible to strengthen the muscles needed for sitting independently.
It’s recommended to limit having the baby sitting in a bouncer seat to 30 minutes a
day or less and ideally broken up into several sessions.
When a baby is placed into one of these devices for too long, it limits the opportunity to
move around and strengthen the muscles needed to achieve the various developmental milestones.
It’s also important to limit the amount of time you have your baby sitting in an upright
baby seat.
They really should only be used once babies are able to sit on their own at least in a
tripod position.
Some parents start using them way too early.
This doesn’t help the baby learn to sit, it actually hinders it.
The seats don’t give your baby the opportunity to work on strengthening the back and core
muscles the same way that having the baby sitting on the floor supported by you, or
sitting surrounded by pillows would.
Also the way that some of the baby seats are shaped cause the baby's hips to be rotated
backwards when they are sitting in them.
As a result it causes the baby’s backs to be more rounded, which is not good for posture.
The better alternative is to have the baby sitting upright supported by a boppy pillow
or in a tripod position, supporting themselves with their hands on the floor.
In the comments below, let me know which of the recommendations you found to be most helpful.
If you would like to track your baby’s development and know which developmental milestones should
be achieved next, get your free baby development checklist through the link in the description
below.
I’m looking forward to seeing you in my next video.