How to teach a child to sit down

The appearance of a child in the family is always a great joy, but also a big responsibility. Now we need to closely monitor the stages of its development and help the child in all his attempts to go through these stages. Here you need to listen not only to your own feelings, the advice of relatives and special benefits, but also to the opinion of your pediatrician. It is this person who will reliably tell you about all the nuances and will calm you down if your child deviates from these nuances a little.

Sooner or later, each parent raises the question of at what age it is best to begin to sit down the child, and how to make it a rule so as not to harm the baby with your actions. After all, the bones and muscles of young children are not at all strong and are easily injured.

Optimal age

The first and most logical question arises about the age at which the child already needs to sit. This means that the bones and muscles are strengthened just enough to withstand the weight of the baby and not to be overloaded. Here we are talking about the abdominal muscles and the chest and the strengthening of the bones of the back - they perform the main function of keeping the body in an upright position.

By six months, these muscles and bones, as a rule, are formed properly, so the child, sitting down, does not experience discomfort and heaviness in the body. This is the optimal age to start teaching your baby to sit on their own.

But there are exceptions to every rule:

1. Boys can begin to sit down with four months, especially if he takes the initiative to this: grabs his hands on your fingers and pulls up or lifts his legs and body, trying to sit down on his own.
2. Girls are not recommended to plant up to six months due to the structural features of the body. Previously, sitting down a girl can turn into big problems in adulthood, for example, a bend of the uterus, which can badly affect childbirth.

Mistakes that cannot be made

Very often, having listened to the advice of good friends who do not have a medical education, parents make gross blunders in teaching their child to sit independently. Below is written what should NOT be done when you teach your baby to sit down.

1. Cover him with a bunch of pillows or set him down by leaning on the pillow. The child should sit independently. The presence of soft support only relaxes the muscles and ligaments, which, on the contrary, should actively work and train. Let the kid learn longer without support, but his muscles and bones will get stronger exactly what will help in the future to avoid problems with posture.
2. Use some kind of support. Generally forget about this word if you want to teach the child to sit. You can help him only in tightening - it trains the abdominal muscles, but never sit the child, say, near the wall of the crib - this again will result in the dysfunctions of those muscle groups that should be actively working.

Usually, by seven months, the child can sit quietly by himself, without using your help and, even more so, the support. If the baby is tired, he will simply lie on his back or stomach and continue his work.

Recommended Exercises

To be honest, a list of fortifying exercises should be provided to you by your pediatrician at a scheduled examination in half a year. Usually it is on him that the doctor asks if the child is sitting on his own. If, in response, he hears that the baby is not making even attempts to break away from a flat surface, then he will surely show you what exercises you should do so that the child begins to rise to a sitting position.

On the next examination, you will hear the same question, and if there is no progress, you will be referred for further examination by a neurologist and an orthopedist to rule out possible pathologies of the nervous system, muscles and the skeleton.

If no diseases are found, then you are strongly advised to pay more attention to the exercises, it may be worthwhile to conduct a course of massage and physical therapy. All this strengthens the muscles and bones of the baby.

Here are some exercises for the daily training of the child:

1. You help the baby to rise from the "supine" position by holding his palms. It should be done very gently, remembering the fragility of the baby. You can start with 3-4 times so that the child does not get too tired. Over time, the number of approaches can be increased.
2. Offer the child the fingers of your hands. He should grab them and pull himself up. To begin with, it would be nice to give the child both hands, but over time, offer only one, the second holding the baby’s feet under the knees. IMPORTANT: do not pull the child immediately to yourself, leave your hands in a fixed position, be sure to give him the opportunity to raise the body.
3. Teach your baby balancing in space. To do this, sit it on a flat surface without the possibility of relying on anything. In this position, you fix his legs with one hand and hold his hand with the other. Smoothly direct his torso in a circle, letting the baby feel the empty space around him. In this exercise, it is permissible to put soft springy pads around to secure it.
4. If you are going to buy a playpen, then take the one that has large cells. A child placed in it will have a good opportunity to pull themselves up, clinging to these very cells.

Restorative exercises

Not only active activities contribute to the speedy training of your child's independent sitting.It is necessary to remember that it is necessary to strengthen the muscles and bones of the baby in every sense of the word.

1. Help the child roll from belly to back and back. In the process, you can use your favorite baby toys to interest him: he will reach for a rattle and, accordingly, actively move.
2. Sit the baby on your lap and put your hands in front of him so that he can hold onto them. Do not let the child rely on you (at least until he gets tired), let him learn to balance. To keep the child calm and not capricious, you can also distract him with toys or rhymes like “Over the bumps, over the bumps”.

Why baby doesn't want to sit

It is worth noting that often the desire of the baby ahead of the expectations of adults. As the child grows, his physical activity also grows, and as a result of this, he himself will begin to attempt to sit down. As a rule, innate craving for the knowledge of the world and independence excludes parental help: a curious and already active kid teaches himself to sit. But if by six or seven months the child does not show proper enthusiasm, and the instructions of the doctor do not bring a positive result, you should think about going through a thorough examination with the baby.

Possible diagnoses that a survey can show you:

• hidden (prenatal or birth) injuries;
• anomalies of the skeleton;
• muscle degeneration;
• rickets;
• hypertonicity of the lower extremities;
• overweight.

Do not panic when hearing this from a doctor. All this in the conditions of modern technology is treated, it can be fought.

If the survey did not show anything like that, then you should calm down and not fit your child to the generally accepted concepts. Perhaps he will learn to crawl faster than he learns to sit. Indeed, in every rule there are exceptions. In this situation, do not force events, you can do harm: only help, attention and care!

Neatly!

Never forget about safety: it is even in such a case. In your hands a fragile baby, any careless movement can seriously harm him.

1. You can not start planting a child if he is not ready for this and does not make attempts to tear his back and legs from a flat surface.
2. It is impossible to use additional support, whether it be a headboard, pillows or soft rollers, which are supposedly made for this purpose.The child must be able to navigate and balance in space, his muscles must work actively! Otherwise, it will result in problems with posture.
3. If you are diagnosed with hypertonus, be sure to treat it! A baby with such a disease is sitting incorrectly: it rests on the buttocks and heels, while the spine is curved incorrectly. This will also lead to back problems.
4. Do not worry if the child is crying, trying to sit down from the "standing" position. This is obviously harder, he will cope with this by the year. If this does not happen, then take the baby to the doctor.
5. A child who does not know how to sit can be rolled in a stroller with a rigid backrest, which leans back to the position of “half lying”. The walk should not last longer than an hour. Also, such a child can be planted in a kangaroo, but, again, not longer than an hour.

All this is relatively easy if approached correctly and with the mind. Do not demand from your child more than he can do - do not harm. Make it a rule: do not rush things, but gently push for further development. Only in this way your baby will develop properly and in accordance with his own program, which was laid from birth.

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