How To Stimulate The Motor Skills Of Babies?

Stimulating the motor skills of babies early on facilitates their psychomotor development. Psychomotor development begins when children open their eyes to the world; however, not everyone advances or overcomes their different stages at the same time.

Many children raise their heads, turn over in bed, crawl, pick up objects or walk faster than others. So, how to stimulate babies’ motor skills? We answer: with exercises.

Exercises to stimulate babies’ motor skills

Although each little one goes through the steps in his own way,  there are exercises that serve to awaken and increase the control of his movements.

Below, we explain some of them.

Stimuli for head control

To encourage the child to lift their head and turn it to different sides,  lay it on its stomach on a hard surface. Gently and with both hands try to move your head to the right, forward and left. Repeat the exercise in the opposite direction.

Another incentive to put it into practice centers on placing several brightly colored toys in front of and on the sides of the baby lying on his stomach. As the colors will catch your attention, the baby will try to lift his head to see them.

Both of these stimuli, in addition to giving the baby control of his head, will strengthen his back and make him begin to recognize his upper extremities.

Stimuli to spin

Another step a baby must go through is turning. To achieve this, while in the crib, no matter if you are lying on your stomach or up, you must turn your little head, raise your little arms, cross one of your feet and rotate it.

This is the first routine in your life that needs coordinated movement, and this is why it is quite difficult for you. However, as the child practices them, he learns how to do it until he completely masters.

Just like in the previous step, place eye-catching objects near it. The baby will try to turn around to pick up toys around him.

stimuli to sit

In order for the little one to sit down, lay him on his back on a hard surface, take him by the little hands and lift his torso little by little, until he reaches a sitting position.

During this stage, the baby must learn to balance. So sit down and hold him by the hips, this will strengthen his torso, neck and back muscles.

Crawling stimuli

All children crawl differently. There are some who never manage to do it the conventional way: on all fours; on the other hand, they are very fast crawling on the floor sitting on their butts, always with a little foot in front that works as an impulse motor.

But  whatever position your child takes, crawling is a big step forward. Encourage him to move by placing him on all fours, first on top of a mattress, then on the floor.

Sit it on hard surfaces, it could be on the floor. Place several toys almost within reach of your hand. Immediately the child will realize that to catch them he will have to move forward and make an extra effort.

Through crawling, the child will begin to take control of his body  and learn to move around the house to explore where he lives.

walking stimuli

Every time the child masters crawling you will notice that little by little this skill will become small and that it will somehow try to lift itself up to reach the decorative objects and furniture in the house.

Our advice? As you did during the other steps,  take advantage of the baby’s curiosity and place eye-catching objects above his head,  encourage him with words to reach out and grab them with his little hands until he stands upright.

Every time he manages to stop and keep his balance, the baby will be ready to take his first steps. For this purpose, we recommend that you take him by the little hands, stand behind him and, with the tip of your toes, gently push the baby by the heels, inducing him to advance.

If you wish, use a count of “one, two; one, two” as you put one foot and the other forward. We assure you that this is an effective technique that, to your surprise, your baby will want to do it often. Thus, you will learn to walk in a short time.

In the first years of life, a human being acquires skills that will make him a more mature man and allow him to adapt to the world around him.

Likewise, these skills will be the entry window for other more sophisticated skills.