Lately I feel like our physical program has not been what it should be. When Blase was a baby we followed it religiously but now as a result of living in an area where there is not easy access to outdoor areas for walking etc and lack of time it has really fallen off. I need some inspiration so I was hoping that those of you who do a physical program could share with me what you do and how you schedule it into your day. Thanks.
What have you been doing for the program?
We were trying to follow the “How to make your baby physically supurb” book. So what I should be doing with him now is working on the running aspect. However, secondary to where we live there is no where safe to go running (shootings in the school parking lot where the track is, parks with drug deals going down, kids being run over and killed on the sidewalks, etc…) So, I am at a loss what to do. We could drive to a park that is safe but they are a ways a way so its not feasible to do daily.
We do work on tumbling and he does forward rolls daily. Backward rolls are not happening. We also work on fine motor skills like tracing, lacing beads and lacing cards. And during the summer we swim almost everyday.
I just feel like he has so much energy right now and no way to burn it off. I really want to have a more structured program and also somehow figure out a way to incorporate more endurance type activity.
This is a good question and I’m interested in finding out more about what other people have to say in response. I have not yet started a physical program with my daughter because I didn’t even know about such a thing before just a few days ago when I read about it here on the forums. However, my daughter has been very physical from the very beginning, so we have always encouraged her progress there. When the weather was nicer, we’d take her to the playground often and teach her to climb. During rainy or cold weather, or later at night, we might take her to the indoor mall to walk- and boy does she enjoy it! We’re trying to teach her to jump (she gets the idea, but hasn’t figured out how to get both feet off the ground). We always play games that involve crawling under, then climbing over, different objects… like my husband will lay on the ground and bend his legs so that she can crawl under them, then she turns around and climbs over him- and she repeats this many times just for fun. We’ll also chase her about the house and ask her to do different things like: run, jump, spin, crawl, etc. She enjoys watching us have a doll enact the movement and then she copies it. She shows such interest in these things! I would love to see what other activities we could do with her. I also look forward to teaching her to swim (we’re going to start in Jan, at an indoor pool). We don’t have a schedule, but rather simply try to go with her interests and make anything we’re doing more fun by incorporating a physical aspect to it.