Vertical Play During Early Infancy
During the early stages of infancy, many parents are educated on the importance of “tummy time”. Playing on their stomach is a crucial activity to improving muscle strength in an infant’s neck and trunk. However, this is not the only activity parents can facilitate with their little one! Although tummy time should continue to be a staple exercise in your baby’s daily routine, incorporating vertical play during early infancy is equally important to your infant’s overall development.
What is Vertical Play?
Beginning at approximately 6-8 weeks old, vertical play, also known as supported sitting, can begin to take place in your infant’s exercise repertoire. The myths you have potentially heard from family or friends surrounding early sitting and spinal damage have proven to be untrue, with no supporting evidence or research to back up the notion that early sitting can provide any harm to your baby. The truth is actually quite the opposite.
Supported sitting with parental assistance (meaning no outside help from a child-seat or piece of equipment) may occur for short periods from the time an infant is 6 weeks old until approximately 4-5 months old when they begin rolling and supporting themselves in sitting with arm support. This will then eventually transition into “hands-free” sitting around 6-7 months old.
Why is vertical play so important?
Well, not only will this developmental position improve you baby’s head and trunk control, but sitting has cascading effects on outcomes in a variety of domains, including object perception, language development, spatial memory, visual processing, and overall cognition. Additionally, during the early stages of infancy from birth until 4-5 months of age, increased periods of time spent on their back or in container equipment such as loungers, bouncers, swings or seats can promote head flattening (plagiocephaly) and torticollis. Therefore, finding different and safe positions to incorporate into your baby’s daily routine will help to maintain head shape and postural alignment.
Ways to engage in supported sitting:
- Place your infant either on the couch, a chair, a yoga ball, or on top of your knees so they are facing and looking at you, preferably at eye-level. This will allow you to keep your little one entertained while they work on head control, core strength, balance and visual scanning.
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- Place your baby into a “straddle sitting” position over your leg, as if they were riding a horse with one leg on either side of your own thigh. Hold them at their trunk, just under their armpits. In this position, they can be looking away from you and out at the busy environment around them. This position may be useful if you have other little ones running around or both parents are present (one doing the holding of baby and the other providing the entertainment at eye level).
- Put that breast feeding or boppy pillow to good use! Take your infant and place them into a sitting position in front of you over the floor or level surface. Next, take your boppy pillow and place it around them so that they are enclosed in the front and the opening of the pillow is toward the back of your baby. Your baby can now prop their arms onto the front, rounded portion of the pillow, while you remain close by with your hands at their trunk. This will help to improve arm strength in addition to postural stability and head control.
**Try completing for 30-60 sec to begin and continue adding on time as your baby grows and progresses. If they are unable to maintain head control or show signs of fatigue, stop this activity and revisit at a later time.
The salient point is although tummy time is very important and should be completed daily, so should short bursts of vertical or supporting sitting. This is not only a fun and challenging task for infants but exciting for parents as well, as they now have a new way to interact with their little one. Give it a try and tell us what you think!
