Tummy Time Alternatives
For babes that are not loving tummy time - here are a few simple alternatives to try! Use these ideas at home to help find the most comfortable position for your babe to allow them...
Tight Babies | Relieve Baby Tension
Our pediatric specialist reviews some simple baby stretching techniques to relieve tension in a tight baby. Babies struggling with lip or tongue ties, torticollis, gassiness, reflux or general fussiness often hold extra tension in their bodies! These baby stretches and techniques are simple to do at home to help your babe!
How to Relieve Tension in Babies:
During birth, every baby undergoes some degree of trauma. Uterine positioning, the birthing process, and the form of delivery can all contribute to tension in babies, especially newborns. During the first few weeks of life, you should see your baby in relaxed positions while they are awake and while they are asleep. Babies struggling with lip or tongue ties, torticollis, gassiness, reflux or general fussiness often hold extra tension in their bodies! This tension is usually noticed visually [arching, constant clenching, throwing back or extending] and it is felt by caregivers when they are holding babe! Chiropractic adjustments and craniosacral therapy help aid in the relaxation of tight muscles. The stretches we share in the video are for you to try at home to help relieve your baby's tension.
Baby Hip Flexor Stretches
The hip flexors are responsible for bringing the knees toward the chest. They play a big role in stabilizing our pelvis and maintaining our posture later in life. Tight hip flexors in babies can lead to issues with constipation and gas, colic symptoms, and delayed milestone development [issues with sitting, crawling, and walking]. You can stretch your baby's hip flexors a few different ways. Two variations are demonstrated in the video above!
Baby Glute Stretches
Stretching the back side of the pelvis is just as important as stretching the front side of the pelvis! Baby stretches that focus on releasing glute tension can be a game changer. There are nerves that exit our tailbone [sacrum], communicating with our pelvic floor and lower body. By relaxing the surrounding muscles we can help ensure that those nerves are working properly!
Side Body Baby Stretching
Don't forget to stretch your baby's torso! We use this stretch in many baby treatments as it addresses tightness in the entire body. Therefore, it can be helpful for many conditions we treat like torticollis, tongue ties, and even reflux!
Sacral Pumping
The sacrum is the triangle-shaped bone that sits in the center of your pelvis. It has oodles of connections to skeletal muscles that control not only your baby's lower limbs, but also their pelvic floor! You can perform sacrum pumping or sacral rocking in a side lying position [see below] or with baby supported vertically. Both techniques are in the demonstrated in the video above.
Shoulder Girdle Baby Stretch
This baby stretching technique focuses on relieving tension in the shoulder girdle and upper body. Encouraging mobility in the shoulders will help with torticollis tightness and relieve restrictions caused by swaddling and common nursing positions. This is also a great stretch to continue in older babes as it can help with crawling!
Body Circles
Support babe in a seated position on your lap for this technique. You'll also want to support their head as you move them through full body circles. Body circles can help improve trunk mobility in every direction : flexion, extension, rotation and lateral flexion. Little ones really enjoy this baby stretch as it is easy to make playful!
Guppy Pose
Guppy pose isn’t featured in the video above, but we love it so much we wanted to include it here! You may also hear people call it "reverse tummy time". This position promotes extension in fussy and tight babies. It is also a great position to practice in babies with tongue ties [pre- frenectomy and post-frenectomy]! Be sure to support your baby's head in this position. For more instructions, watch this video.
