Tummy Time on a Play Mat is Great for Your Baby

Tummy time is wonderful for aiding a child’s mental and physical development – and a play mat is an ideal setting for a session with your baby facing downwards, as it provides a soft and comfortable surface.

There’s no disputing the importance of ensuring a baby is placed on its back for safe sleeping in a cot at night and naps during the day – but spending time on the tummy is also essential for proper development. Medical research suggests that if babies don’t get enough ‘tummy time’ they can experience delays in gross motor skills development.

A simple rule for dedicated parents to remember and apply is: Back to Sleep – Tummy to Play. Check out our featured tummy time play mats for babies.

It is also believed that spending time on the chest and stomach area encourages a baby’s head to become fully round, rather than flat areas developing if too much time is spent lying on the back. This is called plagiocephaly – better known as flat head syndrome, where one side of the head appears asymmetrical.

Regular periods of tummy time on a play mat or rug are also great for helping to increase the strength and mobility of the muscles in a newborn or baby’s neck, shoulders and upper back.

Many play mats have colourful patterns, shapes and designs to capture a baby or infant’s attention while facing floorwards during tummy time.

There are even mats available which have been created specifically to occupy and stimulate babies during tummy time – these feature various little novelties and soft toys which a child can reach out and touch. Some of these little play things make noises when squeezed or shaken to entertain the baby.

Some babies spend too much time in their carrier, baby chair, car seat or play swing, meaning they don’t always get to experience the essential variety of other positions that can help them progress, including spending time on their tummies.

Incorporating tummy time into your baby’s day is essential – regular sessions on a play mat or rug can prove very beneficial indeed.

It is wonderful for developing motor control and postural strength. It works the extensor (back) muscles that run along the spine, from the back of the head down to the tailbone. It also develops the flexor muscles – those which decrease the angle between the bones on the two sides of a joint, such as the muscles in the area of the knees and elbows.

Tummy time exposes a baby to a whole new world of different and colourful stimulation. Interacting with play things on a mat enables the eyes to be trained and exercised to focus at different lengths, helping a baby’s vision to develop.

Being in the prone position means a baby boy or girl is exposed to a lot of tactile sensory input to the face, mouth and other body parts, therefore stimulating learning and self-exploration. Hard and soft toys that a baby can touch during tummy time give plenty of stimulation to the nervous system.

Visual Processing, cognition & environmental awareness can all be boosted when a child is enjoying a tummy time session. It also encourages babies to interact with their environment – looking, listening, reading, imitating, talking, babbling and singing.

Parents can get real pleasure from seeing a baby’s confidence start to grow during a tummy time session and a sense of achievement it gets it starts to raise its head and interact with everything around.

Tummy time on a well-padded play mat is even more fun when you place toys in front of your baby, within your little one’s line of vision – this is assuming you have a standard play mat and not one of those referred to earlier which are made especially for tummy time sessions. When a baby is able to support its head and top half, it will try to reach for the toys. Plus if mum, dad or an older brother or sister gets down on the floor with the baby, it will make for some great social interaction and valuable family time.

Always supervise your baby during tummy time – don’t leave a little child alone for even a few seconds. If a baby is not yet accustomed to spending time lying down, face forwards, it is sensible to start with just a few minutes of tummy time and increase the time period gradually. If a baby starts to become unsettled you can try some distraction measures with a few toys, before changing the child’s position.

Some parents are under the impression that spending time in the prone position – tummy time – can only be started when a baby is at least six weeks old. However, this is not the case and tummy time can get underway shortly after birth, when the baby comes home from the hospital.

Medical research indicates that nearly half of healthy babies under the age on 12 months are affected by plagiocephaly, flattening on one side of the head. The condition is also referred to as a flat spot, occipital flatness or positional molding.

Two other conditions relating to baby head shape are brachycephaly, where the head is flat at the back and wide in relation to the length, and the other is scaphocephaly where the head is narrow in relation to the length.

Despite the risk of plagiocephaly and brachycephaly, it is widely accepted that parents should still always put a baby down to sleep on its back and regularly turn the child’s head from side to side, thereby altering the area of the head that the baby is sleeping on.

If a baby’s head is stiff or unable to be turned to one side there is the possibility that a neck muscle is tight – in this situation parents should get medical advice and treatment from a paediatric musculoskeletal therapist, such as a qualified paediatric physiotherapist, osteopath or a chiropractor.

Laying Baby on Your Chest is Also Very Beneficial

Spending time on the floor on a play mat isn’t the only scenario to enable a baby to enjoy some tummy time – there are various other settings where you can place your child in the forward-facing position.

Resting your baby on your chest is a good option – this is not only great for bonding and skin-to-skin time, but it also encourages your baby to try to raise his or her head in order to see your face.

You can sing or call out your baby’s name to try to encourage the raising of the head. You should also encourage the turning of baby’s head from side to side to strengthen neck muscles, and place a rolled up towel or blanket under your baby’s chest to assist the raising of the shoulders. After a few days of doing this you will see steady progress and a baby will eventually raise its head unaided.

Placing your baby belly down on your lap for a winding session is another great opportunity to slip in some vital tummy time.

Carrying your baby draped along your arm on his or her front is a great colic-soothing method and it also ensures some beneficial tummy time. You will need to support a tiny baby’s head with your hand but this will no longer be necessary when the head, neck and upper body muscles start to develop.

Most mothers tend to carry their newborn up against their shoulder, supporting the child’s head with one hand. Shoulder preference often depends on whether a mother is right-handed or left-handed – however, it is important to try to get into the habit of regularly switching a baby to the other shoulder and turning its head the opposite way from which it normally faces. This embeds the idea in a baby’s mind that the head can be turned and the child will eventually try turning its head itself.

Some pillows have been specially designed with a hole in the middle in an attempt to prevent flat areas developing on a newborn baby’s head. Mimos® is one of the most highly regarded brand names for this type of pillow.

Gently rolling you baby over from front to back, and side to side, is also great for helping those little muscles to develop. Drying time after a bath, nappy changing time and when you are getting your baby dressed all provide perfect opportunities to do this.

The Importance of Tummy Time to Get Your Baby Moving

The initial stages of your little one’s movement – such as tummy time, crawling and rolling – are known as gross motor skills. These key movements involve the large body muscles such as the shoulders, arms, neck, bottom, back and legs.

It is essential that a baby starts to develop good gross motor control and strength in the larger body muscles to facilitate later mastering of smaller, more refined movements that rely on the smaller muscles, such as those in the hands, fingers and eyes.

These are called fine motor skills and they will form the foundation for your little one’s reading and writing skills which are so vital in later life.

So it’s clear to see that getting down to some serious tummy time on a play mat is a key activity in your baby’s early development. Giving your little boy or girl baby plenty of opportunity to experience and practice early movements like tummy time and rolling, will ultimately help in the development of strong muscles for the future.

The more a skill is practiced by your baby, the easier it will become – thereby enabling the little one to be more able and confident about exploring the amazing world around it.

Once a baby has mastered the large body movements such as standing, sitting and crawling it will start practicing more advance skills which will eventually lead to an ability to undertake so many other physical activities such as running, climbing, jumping, riding a bike and swimming.

Parents should remember to lead by example which means joining in the fun during tummy time with their babies. The more active a child sees its parents being, the more naturally it will come to the little one to copy mum and dad.

The opportunities are manifold for an active, inquisitive mind and a baby or toddler who is confident and keen to move around.

Let’s not forget that the desire to move about is instinctive in babies – it manifests itself in the womb, even before the little one is born!