When Anna started to be able to stay in sitting position, it gave her life a new point of view, a higher one! She was spending most of her time lying on her back before that. Because of her low muscle tone, she found tummy time specially difficult, so when she was able to stay sitted, we all really enjoyed it. It was great to see her sit and play!
Learning to sit independently is an important milestone in a baby’s development. Here are some of the benefits:
Core strength and stability: As a baby learns to sit upright, their core muscles, including the muscles in the abdomen and back, are strengthened. This improved core strength supports overall stability and coordination.
Postural control: Sitting independently helps babies develop better postural control. They learn to adjust their position, shift their weight, and maintain an upright posture. This skill is essential for later motor milestones such as crawling, standing, and walking.
Fine motor skill development: When sitting, babies have increased opportunities for fine motor exploration and development. They can use their hands more freely to grasp and manipulate objects, improving their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. This stage is crucial for developing skills like picking up small objects, feeding themselves, and eventually writing.
Visual and cognitive development: Sitting upright allows babies to have a different perspective on their environment. They can look around, observe their surroundings, and engage in visual exploration. This helps stimulate their visual perception, depth perception, and cognitive development as they interact with objects and people from a seated position.
Anna’s low muscle tone and hypermobility meant that she started to being able to stay sitted later than the typical child. There were a few exercises that we did with her to reach this milestone.
The stages of sitting: providing support
For a while, before she was able to stay in the position by herself, we had to provide support. It was tiring at times, but she liked this new perspective so much!
We supported her at her pelvis, so she could do exercises that would help her gain balance and be able to sit by herself. When you provide support for sitting (or even for standing), the lower in the body that you do it, the more that the kid will be working and the less support that you will be providing.
Once her sitting balance improved, we would only support her around her hips to anchor her to the floor.
This is an interesting video about it from a physical therapist that Anna’s phisyo recommended me.
The next step: working on her sitting balance
Propping through her hands
The next step, to work on her balance, was for her to prop through her hands so she would give herself some support by having one or both hands down. Our job there was to encourage her to do it by making it as playful as possible. One way to do this would be to play and sing row row row your boat. It would be like in the video below but with a baby, and therefore more gently (sorry, it is the best video that I could find).
Sit and play crossing the midline
Reaching to the side crossing the midline was also very important to improve her sitting balance. Here we would place toys on her side for her to reach for them. Initially she preferred to use the arm that was on the same side of the toy and she would not cross her midline to reach it. With time she started to cross her midline more.
To help with the movement, we did as shown in the video below. We would ‘block’ one of her hands (we did it on her legs) as she uses it to prop, and encourage her to reach across her body with the other arm for a toy. In the video, the physical therapist holds the baby’s legs back. We did not try to do it to start with, and when we started to try, Anna never let us do it. She just did not want to!
I did not know it at the time but some of these exercises, like the one in the video above, also work to prepare them to get into a crawling position so they can then crawl.
Toys that she liked at this stage
The sensory balls mentioned in the rolling over post were great for the exercises above. To encourage her to play whilst sitting, she really liked the following toys.
The baby wooden activity cube: some games on the sides are for older kids. She initially played mainly with the top and the side with the ladybird.
The Fisher Price till: this classic Fisher Price till entertains her so much. Once she gets bored of the till, she just plays with the coins 🙂
Musical drum: the top flashes up when hitting it. In addition to helping her to improve her sitting posture, it is great to play “ready, steady and go” games that her Occupational Therapist recommended.
Reaching the sitting milestone was one of the most celebrated by us. It allowed her to engage with the world and with us from a different perspective. It made her really happy! Which made us even happier! 😃
