All About Tummy Time: When to Start and Tips for Safety
Wondering when to start tummy time and how to go about it? Here are answers to the top questions about tummy time:
What Is Tummy Time?
Tummy time is daily time your baby spends on their stomach playing in order to build their muscles. This is an important precursor to milestones like reaching, rolling, and crawling.
Sleeping on the back is essential for infant safety, and it’s one of the 3 main recommendations in the ABCs of safe sleep for prevention of SIDS. Daytime tummy time is the best way to help babies build motor skills safely.
Why Should Babies Have Tummy Time?
- Stronger muscles
- When on their stomach, your baby is forced to engage different muscles to look up and around. Tummy time is a workout that focuses on the muscles on the neck, shoulders, arms, and trunk.
- Better sleep!
- A study found that more tummy time may actually improve infant sleep! By increasing your baby’s physical activity time, they can be more likely to sleep deeply when the time comes. Can we say, “Hallelujah!”
When Should I Start Tummy Time?
According to the AAP, tummy time can start right away! They recommend you start as soon as the first day home from the hospital. You can also do adjusted tummy time for newborns by laying your baby flat on your stomach or holding them up in an airplane position.
How Long Should My Baby Be on Their Tummy?
Experts recommend starting in small increments of 3-5 minutes at a time, several times a day, and increasing gradually. As you give your baby this practice, over time they will develop stronger muscles and be able to play on their tummy for longer periods of time.
Important Safety Tips for Tummy Time
Use appropriate objects for support and play
Put down a flat blanket or towel on the ground to place your baby on. Other toys placed around your baby encourage them to lift their head and reach. You can roll a blanket tightly to place under the infant’s chest to help them as they build muscles. Just as with crib sleep time, don’t put any soft objects or pillows near your baby’s face, as this can cause a risk of suffocation.
Always supervise your baby!
Make sure to never leave your baby to play alone. If your baby is enjoying tummy time play with an older sibling, make sure to monitor their play. Supervision is important to make sure they don’t get into a position where it’s difficult to breathe.
Make sure your baby is alert
Your baby should only have tummy time when awake and alert so they can actively use and strengthen their muscles. In addition, falling asleep on their stomach can pose a safety risk. A good time to initiate tummy time with your little one is after naps or diaper changes. Remember that your baby should have tummy time on the floor, not in their crib or changing table.
Remember, “back to sleep”
It’s important to practice “back to sleep, tummy to play”. Make sure that for nighttime sleep and all naps, you place your baby on their back only. If your baby falls asleep during tummy time, shift them to their back before putting them to bed in their crib.
Watch for rolling development
Within months, your baby will begin to develop the muscles needed to push up and then tip over onto their back. Your baby will later begin to roll at night from back to stomach, at around 4-6 months. It is still important to put your baby down for sleep on their back, but if they roll onto their stomach on their own, it is okay and they don’t need to be turned over.
Babies who learn to roll at night are still able to be in the Magic Sleepsuit until they start to roll while in the Sleepsuit. When your baby is able to roll over at night while in the Magic Sleepsuit, it is time to transition from the Sleepsuit to a Dream Sack to allow more movement.
Also in Our Blog
What’s the Difference Between a Swaddle and a Sleepsack
Five Questions about Early Morning Wakeups for Baby
The team at NAPS helps you tackle the issue of early wakeups. *BONUS* NAPS is hosting a webinar on February 24th. Register here and use the extra-special code MAGICMERLIN and you can join the webinar FREE of charge!
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The sound of cheery calls of “MAAAAMAAAAA” from the next room may be lovely at 7am. At 4am, or 5 am, not so much. Your baby may be up and ready to start the day, but you probably aren’t.
Answering the questions below may help you get there.
- Is your nap schedule mucking up your baby’s overnight sleep?
This might seem like an obvious question, but your baby’s sleep needs will change fast in the first few years of their lives. A quick look at the average nap number and duration might give you an idea:
- For babies from 3-6 months old, it’s normal to take 3-4 hour-long naps per day.
- For babies 6-15 months old, expect 2 naps with 3-3.5 hours of total sleep.
- For one and two-year-olds, you should expect a single 2-hour nap.
Part of the reason you might be seeing earlier wakeups is that your baby has graduated from one nap cycle to the next.
- Does your baby have enough time between their last nap and their bedtime?
We call this an “awake window,” and it can make a big difference. It might seem strange that your baby went to bed fine the night before, and you’re seeing a response to nap scheduling in the pre-dawn hours, but if your kiddo’s sleep is disrupted at night, it will impact the morning.
- 3-6 months, at least 1.5-2 hours between final nap wakeup and bedtime.
- 6-12 months, at least 2.5-3.5 hours between final nap wakeup and bed.
- 12-18+ months, 3.5-4.5 hours between final nap wakeup and bed.
- Is the room staying dark after the sun comes up?
Black 0ut curtains can make a big difference here. Remember that our brains signal wakeup when the light changes. So if dawn is at 430am, and even a little bit of light comes into your baby’s room, their little brains will PING with wake up juice.
- Is your baby going to sleep too early or too late?
It might seem counter-intuitive, but a late bedtime can actually backfire on you. Overtired kids don’t sleep as well. If you made their bedtime later and it didn’t fix the problem, try an earlier bedtime and see if that helps. You might be surprised.
- How do you make it better?
Try to make one change at a time; just one. Stick with that change for 3-5 days to see if it impacts things. (One night is usually not enough to see substantial change.) Be as consistent as you can with the change you made. For instance, if you decide to increase the space between bedtime and final nap wakeup, make sure to stick to the wakeup time you planned.
If your baby is waking up and chirping happily to themselves, feel free to leave them there for a little while. Let them get used to being alone in the crib. If you can, try to delay the start of the day by 5-10 minutes each day. This can make a big impact.
Everything else aside, remember that this is a short time in your kid’s life; as they get older, their sleep will become more regular, and so will yours. Don’t let yourself get too discouraged. Things are hard now, and you’re doing a great job.
