3 Activities to Prepare Your Baby for Rolling

As parents, our utmost priority is ensuring that our babies are growing, developing, and reaching milestones like rolling. Did you know that there are specific activities you can do to help ease your little one into the process of rolling? Today I’m sharing 3 of my favorite activities to prepare your baby for rolling.

Importance of Rolling

Babies typically start rolling from their backs to their sides by getting their legs really high in the air. This can start really early for some babies, around two months, while others won’t begin until around 4 months. There are a lot of things we can do to help facilitate these activities.

Why are these skills important? First, it is a vital component of babies starting to learn to roll. They begin to strengthen their abdominal muscles and it sets them up for milestone success in the future.

The object of these activities is to help your baby get their hands to their feet or hands to their knees to get the process of rolling side to side started.

3 Activities to Prepare Your Baby for Rolling

Playing with Their Feet

Teaching your baby to play with his feet is a great way to prepare your baby for rolling. You can easily use diaper changes as an opportunity to help work and play with your baby.

After a diaper change, you want to play with their feet up in the air and bring attention to their knees. You can take their hands and place them on their knees or feet.

I also love to attach toys to their toes or feet. This makes it easier for your baby to get their hands up. You will start to see your baby’s pelvis rotate off the ground. This means they are working their abdominal muscles which indicate they are getting greedy to start working on rolling.

Place Your Hand Under the Booty

A second activity to help facilitate the beginning stages of rolling is to simply place your hand under your baby's booty flat against the ground.

The idea behind this method is to get your baby to tilt their pelvis back and contract their abdominal muscles. This will help to lift the legs in the air to prepare for rolling.

Place a Swaddle Blanket Under the Booty

Another way to do activity number 2 is by using a swaddle blanket. Simply roll the blanket in a circular shape (like a snake) about an inch or two in diameter. Place it right under your baby’s booty.

This will do the same thing by helping to rotate the hips back and get the legs in the air. When you start to see the legs in the air and their hands coming to the middle to play with toys, that is when you know that the magic of rolling to their side is about to begin.

If you have a younger baby around 2 months they will not have a purposeful reach but you will see the baby contracting everything and gravity will take over.

If you feel like your baby is struggling with any of these activities or you just want a little help or reassurance, my Learning to Roll Masterclass is exactly what you need!

Learning to Roll Video Masterclass