Being in a soft carrier is also a great way to give babies a chance to move and develop muscle strength (and can cut down on time that would otherwise be spent in a seat lying head back because it allows a parent to be mobile / get stuff done at the same time, which let’s face it is why we need to put babies in containers).

Hi V. Most medical professionals do not have training in child development and their main concerns are with results and benchmarks and the prevention of worse case scenarios, rather than optimal, organic, child-led development. When “back to sleep” was first recommended by the AMA (50 years after Dr. Pikler and Magda Gerber espoused it) and this campaign was wildly successful—brought the number of SIDS deaths down by 50%! medical professionals and even some OTs concluded, “Now we have to make sure they get tummy time or they will get flat heads.” But if we allow for plenty of opportunities for free movement in the supine position, babies will roll to their tummies in the healthiest fashion and choose to spend the majority of their time in that position. And from there they naturally teach themselves to crawl, sit, stand, walk, etc. Unfortunately, we live in a society that still considers babies unaware, incapable, and completely helpless to adults. It’s a short circuited way of thinking that helps no one.

My 3.5 month old hates tummy time. He only tolerates two minutes at a time and he screams when he is done. He’ll scream for another 10 minutes after I rescue him. It feels like I’m doing something counter to what he needs and definitely counter to what he wants. It hurts me to my core to hear him scream like that and it makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong and in my gut it feels like I shouldn’t be forcing him to do it.

Maybe you’re less mobile on your stomach, but that’s certainly not true for me. In fact, when I chose to lie down while also doing something, I’m almost always going to lie on my stomach or side – never on my back. I challenge you – get a pack of cards and try playing Solitaire while lying down. Are you going to lie on your back? Or will you be on your stomach propped up on your elbows?

Maybe that’s why my baby likes tummy time – I’ve always done it in situations where it gives her something interesting to interact with. For example:

On the couch beside me, facing outward, with the dog periodically coming over to wash her face.

On her play gym that has pictures of a cityscape on the cloth that she can see best when she’s on her tummy.

On her other play gym that has activity centers in the corners with fun stuff to grab, again only accessible if she’s on her tummy facing them.

On the chest/belly of a reclining adult who is interacting with her.

Yeah, this article sounds pretty ridiculous when you have a kid who can’t roll yet but has excellent head control in tummy time and loves being on her tummy.

Yeah, never understood how lying on their backs is supposed to be the most natural position for babies. Seems pretty dumb to randomly pick one of the many positions you can put them in that they can’t put themselves in and put that one on a pedestal as the most “natural” one. Not to mention that natural things aren’t necessarily ideal or even remotely better than unnatural things. Whether or not something is natural has basically nothing to do with whether or not it’s good.

Just to clarify, laying babies on parents’ chest IS a form of tummy time.

We’ve had a benign attitude about floor time with my third ever since birth. I give him a yes space and walk away and continue about my chores.

Anecdotally, he rolled over both ways at 3 months and crawled (with great effort; trunk in the air) before 6 months. He is completely independent and I don’t need to entertain him with space consuming baby containers.

We do infrequently use a soft sided carrier on walks outside when the weather won’t allow for the stroller to be pushed through the elements.

He never needed tummy time. I am waiting for the day when he discovers sitting by himself, as my older two did closer to a year. Thank you for sharing an alternate perspective!