Sitting
- Mar 30
- 3 min read
Sitting is such an exciting skill to see our littles ones accomplish for the first time but how to you practice and know when it is time to start. Usually little ones are reaching in front of them and ideally also pivoting on their tummies. Sitting is typically seen around 6 months.
When you first start practicing, you want to start in the prop sitting position. Many little ones like to throw themselves backward if you place them in upright sitting. We want to teach them from the start that throwing themselves back in upright sitting is not safe. Often they don't learn right away that this is not safe because parents catch them or put pillow behind them. The the ability to catch them when falling back in sitting, a neurological protective extension response doesn't occur until around 9 months but, catching themselves going forward emerges around 6 months. This makes prop sitting the best and safest place to start and is why we want them to master prop sitting first.
At first, you do not want to have any toys around as them often dive for the toys. They even may fall forward and not try to catch themselves so just be there to help them. Once they can hold prop sitting easily, start placing toys in their laps. This will allow them to try to lift and come closer to an upright position using control vs a whole body extension pattern throwing them back. Remember, they don't have the control yet and may throw themselves back or fall to the side so be there to catch them and bring them back to center. Catching themselves to the sides usually emerges around 7-8 months.
When trying to get them to lift up to a more upright position, the playmats with the arches of handing toys many parents have used for playing on their backs can be placed in front of them to get them to reach up and come to a more upright position. If you use this, have the hanging toy, not overhead but at chest/shoulder level if they were sitting upright.
The optimal leg position is ring sitting with the feet touching and knees pointing out creating a circle or a "ring". There are times when little ones like to keep their knees straight with a wide straddle position. When they use a straddle position, they tend to use their legs to counterbalance their trunk and the core needs to work less. When sitting in a straddle they also tend to use less trunk rotation and more forward and back motions which is sub-optimal in preparation for the next skills. We want their core to be strong in all directions! The smaller their base, the more their core has to work.
Check out the video on how to get them into tummy time and position them correctly!
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