Can't keep my 6.5 on tummy

[MarciaMSPT]

Hi... my DS is 6.5 and he's just learned to get off his belly over the last 3 weeks... tummy time has gone from 15 minutes or more to 1.5 seconds or less!  He is not able to roll from back to belly yet... should I prop him with pillows to stay on tummy longer - he gets very upset when I try this!  Or should I just go with it and start practicing more crawling skills?  Not sure what to do at this point as I know tummy time is very important.

Thanks!

[michaeljacknnugg]

I thought tummy time was about neck strength? He probably has a lot of that by now!

My DS learned to roll at 4mo, and from no point after that could I keep him anywhere!! He would flip over onto his tummy as soon as I put him down, and was commando crawling soon after.

Every child has their own timeline for development, and if you try to keep your DS in one position you could well discourage him from trying out his next skill - which may well be rolling onto his tummy!

[MarciaMSPT]

Excellent advice!  Thank you... sometime I get hung up looking at the trees and I miss the forest!  Thanks for the advice and encouragement!

[goldmom]

We rarely kept DS on his back without a hanging toy in front of him. He started a new babysitter at 5 months and she would keep him on his back without a hanging toy and within a week or so he started turning over onto his tummy. I feel like he never would have if it had been up to just me, since I never really gave him the opportunity to even try!

What I would do is always put him down on his tummy and when he rolls over let him be for a while, and eventually just turn him over again. A toy in front of him to look at might keep him there for a little longer. But he sounds like he's doing great now.

[MarciaMSPT]

My little guy seems perfectly content to stare at the ceiling...wish I could find something that motivated him to try to turn!  Any suggestions? 

[goldmom]

You could try to give him a toy to hold and if he drops it maybe he'll try to follow it over. You could also try some sort of standing toy that is to his side so he has to lean over to see it.

[MariaG80]

I'm currently having the same problem. And I'm doing what Goldmom suggested. Whenever she rolls on her back, I let her be for a little, then put her back on her tummy and put a toy or something in front of her, it keeps her there for a little bit. But she doesn't last too long.

I'm not that worried though, she's very close to sitting up on her own (she can sit for a few minutes with me behind her before she loses her balance) and I think that once they can sit up, they figure out they can place their hands in front of them and begin to crawl like that. I read that somewhere..
 

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

That is exactly what DD3 is doing - when we sit her up she leans foward and kicks her legs out to get on her hands and knees (she does not roll much but when she does she wants to be sat up again!).

[lhurley168]

We're going through the same thing! I've started laying DS on his side with a toy next to him. He'll roll to his back with the toy in his hands and play for a bit, then he drops the toy. When he does I'll roll him to his side to show him its right there and he repeats the process. After a while of showing him he now can roll to his side and find toys that he's dropped. He's so close to rolling to his tummy to reach toys that are a bit farther. I bet in the next week he'll be rolling back to front. My mom said when my brother was a baby and figured it out she couldn't stop him from rolling to get what he wanted. We'll see if it's the same for DS.