All stages of a baby’s growth are beautiful, and one of them is crawling. This is where the real fun begins! After all it is a learning phase not only for baby, but for the whole family. When your baby starts crawling you should know that before crawling, baby begins to be able to turn on his own.
All babies have different developmental rhythms, but normally baby begins to turn and move backwards and forwards at around 4 months of age, so most babies start the crawling phase from this time. It is exactly at this stage that you should make your home crawling baby proof, before he is able to move around on his own – so that when this happens the house is baby proof.
When does a baby crawl
Every baby has their own pace, and there are some babies who don’t exactly go through the crawling stage. But usually a baby starts crawling at around 8 to 10 months of age.
Keep the floor clean
If there’s one place babies like to crawl, it’s on the floor, so it’s important that it’s spotlessly clean. Consider having a powerful hoover, preferably with a HEPA filter to avoid the proliferation of dust mites. After all, baby crawls and puts his hands on the floor and then puts them in his mouth and eyes. The ideal thing is to lower yourself to the baby’s level and look at the nearest floor to see what condition the floor is in. This is because a small object such as a coin can be very problematic, because babies tend to take everything into their mouths.
Ask older children for help
If you have older children you should ask them for help and give them an active role in this process. You should explain to them that they should protect their brother or sister at this stage and that, therefore, they have to store their toys well, so that their brother or sister is not hurt by them.
You should explain to them the problem of smaller toys; for this you should give them an example by saying, for example, that if the toy is smaller than the hand then it must be just out of the reach of the crawling baby, because otherwise he could choke on it. Always say this in a positive and non-threatening way; you can even make a game with the name “Baby can play with this toy! For smaller toys you should say: you can play with this toy, but as soon as you’ve finished, you should put it away in the toy world.
Your older child should choose a place that is not accessible to the baby to play with these toys and put them away, thus choosing your toy world. In this way, you will get your older child’s help in a positive and fun way.
Not all babies crawl
You don’t have to worry if your baby doesn’t crawl, because not all do. Many babies do a sort of military crawl, some get up, and others try to start walking straight away. If your baby doesn’t have a more common crawl, don’t worry about it. However, if you have any concerns about your baby’s normal development, talk to your paediatrician about it.
