I am so glad I found your podcast and articles. I have a 5 month old and love discovering her communications, which I may have missed without your guidance (eg asking her if I can pick her up and waiting for a response).

I’m in Australia and tummy time is heavily promoted here too. My biggest fear associated with not doing tummy time is that my little one would learn to roll back to tummy first and could do this during the night and get stuck on her tummy, which would be a SIDS risk.

I’m wondering what you think. I’m also wondering if RIE babies perhaps learn to roll tummy to back quite soon after learning back to tummy.

Thanks!

If you’re interested, happy to provide the video!

Wonderful news, Abby! Thank you for sharing your story and all you very lovely support. You made my week!!

I’ve been your follower for years and with my second child haven’t done any tummy time. She’s 15.5 weeks and today rolled from her back to her tummy all of her own accord, and I’m amazed! This is 2 months faster than her older brother, who I was “light” on tummy time with, but who still got it. While I know it’s not about how fast kids do things, this quick development has amazed me.

I’m so inspired by you and your work, and have inhaled your books and Magda’s. I loved the Baby Liv video as well, which made me put her on a bare wood floor today, when it happened… perhaps that was all she needed! Thank you!

Abby

Hi, I’ve been reading several (soooo many!!) of your baby related posts lately since having my second baby 9 weeks ago (I’ve been an avid follower for many years now with my eldest. I read your articles as my baby Bible 🙂
I’m curious to clarify the following; you often mentioning avoiding “being propped up to sit”
Does this refer to only to ‘equipment’ ie baby seats/swings etc or does it also extend to being held in various positions as well?
I often sit her up against my raised knees while I’m laying down so we can chat to each other, or sit her in my lap when I’m seated.
Could you please extrapolate your definition of being propped to sit.

Thanks kindly!
Harmony

Zero seconds.
My three Ivy League graduates, a doctor, a Phd and an MBA, never crawled. Excellent athletes, btw.
Listen to your kid and to your primitive instincts. Don’t let all the advice and analysis undermine your confidence. Stop thinking and start responding.

Listen to your kid. Be a mammal.
The expert is your child.

Hi Vanessa
I am on my third baby. My other two kids hated tummy time. I decided instead of torturing them constantly crying and me feeling guilt my last baby is going to be tummy time free. She is 4 months and rolled back to tummy in her own terms (when she rolled she also had the head strength to hold her head up) under two weeks later she is a pro and is starting to lean towards rolling back to tummy. She is the earliest roller in the family with zero tummy time. She doesn’t have a flat head at all and has her hair rubbed off in sections but it’s all evening now.

I’m curious about this too. My LB (now 2) definitely preferred to sleep on his tummy as a baby (nights and naps). So I read some of the scientific research about sleeping on the back being safer in terms of SIDS, and I wasn’t convinced by it to be honest. I took the risk and let him sleep on his tummy (in the very early days due to severe reflux, this happened on my chest as we co-slept). His sleep (and mine) improved 100 fold. I would never recommend it to anyone (for obvious reasons), but I discovered that there are still many, many moms who allow it.