Baby

Sheila Coyle's first daughter, Anna, seemed to have read the charts on baby development when she was a tiny tot. She sat up at six months, and by the time she was nine months old she had learned to get around by rolling over. That turned into conventional crawling pretty quickly, and by ten months she was making tracks on her hands and knees.

"She turned one in April, and we thought for sure she'd start walking soon," says Coyle, "but she crawled right through the summer. She crawled on the cement, on the grass, everything. Nothing seemed to bother her - and she could move pretty fast."

By 15 or 16 months Anna made an easy transition from crawling to walking, starting by holding onto furniture or mom or dad's hand. But Coyle's next daughter, Gemma, must have read a different baby book. "Gemma sat up at about six months, just like her big sister," says Coyle. "But she was very interested in building with blocks. She'd sit for long periods of time making towers and things and always had something in her hands."

Even though Gemma could roll over, she didn't do it much. When she got interested in moving around, Coyle says, "she developed a kind of bum-scoot - she'd pull up her knees, move her feet and scoot her bum forward. That way she could still carry things in her hands."

Coyle says she and her husband, Doug, made a point of putting Gemma down on her stomach in a crawling position, but she'd just use her hands to push herself into a sitting position and go right back to bum-scooting. The only time she crawled was when she went up the stairs.

Here's a place where your little one's individuality can't escape notice - there are almost as many different crawling styles as there are babies. Consider, for example, the "commando crawl," where the baby puts his elbows on the floor and keeps his legs flat as he drags himself forward as though under enemy fire; the backward crawl which, to the baby's total frustration, often takes him where he doesn't want to go; the "push up" crawl, where the baby has his hands and feet on the ground and his bum up in the air; the "pacer crawl," where the baby moves first his left arm and leg forward, then his right, instead of alternate arms and legs.

And then, of course, there are babies like Gemma who don't crawl at all.

Is not crawling a bad thing? Rarely. Some parents say their babies just don't bother. Don Leslie is a good example. A father of three boys, he recalls that none of his children motored around on their hands and knees. Instead, each one mastered walking at an early age - around nine or ten months. Other babies do take up crawling eventually, but may be happy to just sit until age one or so. Still, if your baby doesn't seem at all interested in becoming mobile after her first birthday, you might want to talk to her doctor.

What is important is that babies get plenty of opportunity to try crawling (or rolling or cruising) if they want to. A 1998 study out of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland found that babies who spent a lot of time in baby walkers were more likely to experience what researcher A. Carol Siegel called "an exploration deficit." These children scored lower on tests of physical and mental development. While walkers are no longer sold in Canada for safety reasons, other "baby containers" can have the same effect. "Infants often spend too much time confined to strollers, baby seats and walkers. This restricts the time available for free exploration, which is important for mental development," says Siegel.

Recognizing that rug time is essential, what else can you do to support your crawler-in-training?

Your increasingly mobile baby is now capable of getting into dangerous territory. Babyproofing is key - in the few minutes that it takes you to run to the bathroom, your baby can hustle across the room to chew on a lamp cord or taste the leaves of a poisonous plant. Get down on the floor and look at each room from your child's point of view, removing hazards as you go, and make a habit of taking him with you when you leave a room.

If your baby isn't thrilled about hanging out on the floor while everyone else is walking around or sitting on the couch, try meeting him at his level. He'll love the company, and will feel even more encouraged if you bring some enticing toys and place them just beyond his reach.

Dress your tot in good crawling clothes. Bare knees aren't great, and sleepers can get all bunched up around the baby's feet. Dresses are a challenge, too, because they can catch under the baby's knees. Ordinary cotton pants or overalls are good because they keep baby's legs protected while leaving her relatively unencumbered.

Sheila Coyle's youngest daughter, Lucy, is on pretty cosy terms with the carpet, but at seven months, she's not crawling yet. While they don't want to rush her, the Coyles are looking forward to discovering what her unique approach to getting around will be.

September 1999