Transitioning to Hands and Knees Crawling

Crawling is an important milestone for all babies. As a parent, it’s exciting to watch as your little one begin to explore the world around them. While some infants may naturally transition from a tummy crawl to their hands and knees, others may need a little support. Today we’re going to take a deep dive into transitioning to hands and knees crawling.

Transitioning to Hands and Knees Crawling

Learning to crawl is an essential step in every baby's development. It helps them build muscle strength in their shoulders, arms, and legs while also helping them with coordination and balancing skills.

Learning how to crawl not only marks important physical progress but also helps to introduce new social interactions. Moving from place to place also offers them even more opportunities for exploration and discovery.

Crawling happens most commonly between 7-10 months. However, some babies enter crawling a bit earlier. If babies are not showing signs of crawling by 10 months, consider discussing this with your pediatrician. Babies should be crawling and pulling into a standing position by 1 year of age.

There are four main stages in the entire process. Last week we discussed how to master the first two stages of crawling. Today we will take an in-depth look into transitioning to hands and knees crawling.

Stage 3: Transitioning Into Hands and Knees

When it is time for your baby to make the transition from tummy time to crawling, transitioning into their hands and knees is the next step. This is a difficult skill to master and typically doesn’t happen until closer to 8-10 months old.

Despite this being a tough skill for many babies, is extremely critical that it isn’t skipped. Learning how to transition into hands and knees will set them up for success when it comes to hitting future milestones like crawling forward and getting into a sitting position.

To get there, many babies will engage in some funny and seemingly odd moves. For example, you may notice things that look like baby planks and downward dog. These are common strategies babies use to strengthen their core. These moves help them as they work on their coordination and learn to transition onto their hands and knees.

If your little one is having trouble making that transition or you’re not sure if they’re quite ready yet, don't worry. The end of Phase 2 of my Learning to Crawl Masterclass offers three different strategies to help teach the skill as well as a “pretests” to see how prepared your baby is for those new transitions!

Stage 4: Hands and Knees Crawling Forward

The fourth and final stage in the learning to crawl journey is hands and knees crawling forward, and it is highly critical your baby masters this step.

Mastering hands and knees crawling provides many amazing benefits for babies that can stretch long into the future. Crawling develops the natural bony curves of the spine which in turn supports good posture. It also helps to build coordination for tasks like tying shoes and even strengthens hand muscles to support writing.

Though there are some special "unicorn babies" who may skip crawling altogether and start walking sometime between 8-10 months old, these tend to be exceptions to the norm. For the vast majority of babies, learning to crawl is a foundational step in your baby's development.

If you have questions or are unsure if your baby is on the right track, stage 3 of my Learning to Crawl masterclass and ebook covers every exercise you will need to help your baby move from transitioning to hands and knees to forward strides.

With this four-step process, your little one will be crawling in no time!