Standing
Pulling to standing position and cruising are important developmental milestones that happen before walking. Cruising is when a child holds onto an object such as the edge of a table and uses it as a support to walk.
Provide plenty of floor time both outdoors and indoors to allow babies to explore and develop the skill of standing.
Once a child is able to stand encourage them to start squatting down to pick up objects and then stand again, this will help develop the balance and strength needed for walking.
Encouragement is a great motivator, Be over-the-top with your clapping and encouragement of standing so babies understand that standing is wonderful.
Try:
- Dancing, singing and moving while standing
- Encourage lots of crawling, standing, squatting and cruising to build strength
- Placing interesting objects at standing height and encouraging baby to pull up to stand
Try these set-up ideas to encourage standing and cruising:
- Set-up standing height play tables with interesting objects or toys on them such as cars or building blocks
- Have safe low lying furniture available for the child to pull up on and cruise around
- Place objects on the low lying furniture for the child to collect or knock onto the floor – demonstrate first how to do it
- Provide stable push along toys such as doll prams, trolleys or wagons or even just a box to push around to encourage movement and walking
- Place small balls or objects on the ground for them to collect and place in a bucket at standing height
Introduce some of KIDDO’s engaging and age appropriate activities to encourage crawling:
- Dance along to KIDDO's Active movement songs (search KIDDO_AU on spotify)
- Set up standing Movement stations
- Navigate through crawling Obstacle courses
- Walk like a Bear with Animal walks
- Practice squatting to pick up balls in Clean up the rubbish (babies)
Babies may progress through these steps around the age of 8-12 months while developing the skill of standing:
- Able to take weight on feet when standing
- Pulls self to standing position when hands held
- Stands by pulling themselves up on furniture
- May stand alone momentarily
- Squats to pick up objects