My son has been crawling for nearly two weeks now and I have been struggling to get him to move any distance. He can move but without adequate motivation he doesn’t. If I leave him to play with his toys, he will maybe crawl 3 feet in half an hour.
One of his biggest motivators is books. He will quite happily crawl 2-3 yards to get to a book, where he might do 2-3 feet to knock down a tower of blocks (his second favourite). So, to get him moving more, I devised a ‘book chase’ through the flat. I set up a book every 1-2 yards and we ‘chase’ them all through the flat. At each book, we stop for a cuddle and read together, then go after the next one.
At the moment we can get about 6 yards before he loses interest in the game. That is probably about as much as he will do independently in a day! I really want to get his crawling up (though I can’t imagine achieving Doman’s 1000 yards!) and I figure we can do this several times a day and build it up and up… the advantage is we get in lots of reading, too!
Excellent idea ‘chasing books’ and specially reading at intervals. I can see how he enjoys this game. Keep doing that because it is very important that he crawls before walking.
Tell me, do you see any difficulty in his crawling.? I have seen babys crawling with their leg somewhat twisted.
Does he gets on his knees and lift his body.
Do yo crawl with him too?
I think that watching you or crawling with you is the best way of getting him to do it. And a lot of exercise for both of you. :yes:
No, he doesn’t get his bottom up yet. He mostly pulls himself along with his hands, pushing down with one leg and crossing his ankles :rolleyes:
I do try to crawl with him and he spends time with his cousin who crawls ‘properly’ on hands and knees but he doesn’t seem interested in trying any other way at the moment. He has only been mobile for a couple of weeks, so hopefully he’ll get the idea soon enough.
I know how important it is for babies to crawl, which is why I came up with this idea of encouraging him, since he just doesn’t move very much if left on his own. It also lets me schedule in reading time which otherwise gets forgotten with all the million and one things I have to do in a day
