Thank you Janet!! x

Hi Amy! Wow! what a beautiful report! I love hearing this and I’ve had so many similar experiences with my own children. Well done trusting your agile girl! xo Janet

Today was probably my proudest parenting day so far (our little girl is almost 14 months) and I just had to share why with you (and other readers wondering about this approach) because it is in large part thanks to all of your teachings!

I stumbled across your post about not sitting babies up when my little girl was around 5 months and we had just started doing that very thing (because we had seen a friend from our antenatal course doing this with her little one of course!). Once I read your post on this I started to read more and more and it all made so much sense to me – so we committed to RIE! It was only a couple of days of not sitting her up before our girl was happy lying on her back again, enjoying kicking her legs and rolling all about – when she learnt to get to the sitting position by herself at 8 months she was so strong!

Fast forward to today (after many more months of reading your posts almost daily and purchasing and reading and re-reading both of your books) – our little girl took her first steps!!! After so many months of being asked ‘is she walking yet’ and ‘does she have a walker? You can borrow ours’ etc. etc. from well meaning relatives and friends, and asking people not to walk her around (why does everyone love to do that so much?) – she did it all by herself!! Her determination as she crouched, stood, gained her balance, and took those steps – then falling to her bum but getting right back up over and over to do it again – and her joy as she was doing it! Oh we were so proud!!! Tears in our eyes that’s for sure. And to top it off, this afternoon we met up at a toddler playground with two other Mums and their bubs of a similar age who we hadn’t seen for about a year as they’d moved out of town – they tried to hide their surprise when they saw our girl was crawling around and not walking (the few steps at home this morning obviously didn’t translate to the park environment just yet!), but as the play date went on I could see their surprise turn to wonder – while their gorgeous kiddos could tottle about, they were being placed at the top of equipment, not sure what to do next – frozen and looking for help – our girl was off! Crawling up the ramp, climbing the steps, going through the tunnels, sliding gleefully down the slide – she was in her element! Using her body with strength and confidence in her own capabilities. I beamed all the way home with pride.

Thank you thank you thank you Janet for all that you do – we are enjoying our experience as first time parents and the relationship that we are developing with our girl so so much and we have you and RIE to thank. Forever grateful.

I love this idea and was 100 percent committed when my kids were born, until it became clear that my child had developmental delays and needed extensive physical and occupational therapy to learn to move his body. My daughter now also seems to be in a similar boat. When kids have “motor planning” issues, they need help and guidance to know how to move, and often a lot of coaxing. It is not RIE at all, and it took a long time for me to come around to accepting that this portion of the philoo I would have to let go of. I just wanted to put this out there, because I’m sure there are other parents feeling things when they read posts like this about the ease of natural development.

Thank you for this very interesting article. My baby is 6 months old and I thought I had to help him practise things to get stronger, just like doing tummy time for example.
I have a question regarding sitting: should we not place them in a sitting position until they can reach the sitting position themselves? I believe they tend to reach the sitting position unaided from lying down around 8-10 months, which would mean that until then we should leave them lying down, is that right? How to do for eating then?
Thank you in advance for your answer

Hi Rhiannon – I love your openness. With Magda Gerber’s approach we would do less adult stimulating and pushing, so that the child can be self-motivated to turn to turn their head to the opposite side. That might include positioning them in their crib with the flat-spot side toward the wall and/or placing a toy or two in the needed direction on the floor, but then leaving this up to the child. We would make even more of a point to offer plenty of floor time in the supine position, so the baby can develop the skills and muscles needed for rolling. You may wish to check out the Anat Baniel method. Irene Lyon is a great resource as well:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ko7U1pLlg You can check out her post on my site: The Case Against Tummy Time

I’m also a paediatric physiotherapist and find this article particularly interesting. 3 years ago I would’ve disagreed entirely, but I’m starting to change my beliefs.

I would be interested in your opinion say in a child with plagiocephaly (flattening on one side of the head due to positioning) and often improves with time. However usually I would recommend lots of stimulation to the non affected side, tummy time etc and quite a lot of intervention. Under the principles of RIE this would seem to be not correct. However it seems the baby has had a strong tendancy to look to one side therefore I’m not sure if they would self correct if allowed to explore in their own natural way.

I find this all fascinating and am just interested how to handle these types of issues when medical issues come into play. Any resources/reading around this topic including PT ( as I saw you mentioned that you know some PTs who belive in minimal intervention) I would be very grateful.

Many thanks

Dear Rachael – I am hearing of many OT’s these days who have a progressive, holistic approach that values, as Pikler and Gerber did, autonomous achievement by the child. These therapists make it their job to intervene minimally (and respectfully) to give children the opportunities they need to experience the power of TRUST and “I did it!” as much as possible. They perceive all children as innately capable. I would encourage you to do some research in your community, so that you can find the respectful support that you and your child deserve. Please keep me posted! Love, Janet