When we got home from the hospital my husband started our daughter doing tummy time at 3 weeks old. She laid there like a blob. She looked so helpless. He was inspired to research online about it. Come to find out it’s really important for the strengthening of their neck and back and also for the curvature of their back.
I got real concerned when a doctor told us that she wasn’t holding her head up at 2.5 months like she should at that age. So I a little research about it and found out that by 4 mo. of age they should be doing 80 minutes a day. She’s 3 mo. now and were barely up to 20.
There a few things that mimic tummy time and help strengthen the back and neck also. If you hold your baby at an angle on your chest and they are lifting their head that’s a form of tummy time. If you hold your baby on their tummy on your arm facing down that’s a form of tummy time. So were probably doing more tummy time than we realize. I also put her on a boppy pillow and that counts too. So thank God she demands so much attention because we are doing way more tummy time than I thought. I do a lot of entertaining her during tummy time, I got a video of her using a slinky. She gets so frustrated that she’s not strong enough to sit up and play with toys yet. The slinky falls out of her hand very quickly. The longest tummy time we’ve had to date at 3 months 1 week was 26 minutes at one time. I try to do it when she just wakes up, ate and changed. It seems to work best then.