Why Crawling Is an Important Developmental Milestone
Crawling is a major milestone in infant development, but it’s more than just a step toward walking. It plays a vital role in strengthening muscles, improving coordination, and even enhancing brain development. While some babies may skip crawling, research suggests that this movement offers unique benefits that support motor skills, learning, and sensory processing.
The Importance of Crawling in Infant Development
1. Crawling Builds Strength and Coordination
Crawling is one of the first full-body movements babies perform. It strengthens the core, shoulders, arms, and legs, all of which are essential for later motor milestones like pulling to stand and walking. Research shows that weight-bearing through the arms during crawling also supports fine motor skills such as handwriting and grip strength later in childhood. (Gallahue & Ozmun, 2006).
2. Crawling supports fine motor development
Crawling can improve hand-eye coordination, strengthening grip and hand muscles, enhancing bilateral coordination, and building dexterity, all of which are essential for tasks like drawing, dressing, and feeding.
3. Crawling Enhances Sensory and Body Awareness
When babies crawl, they receive proprioceptive input—the sense of where their body is in space—through their hands, knees, and joints. This helps them develop balance, coordination, and movement planning. Babies also experience different textures and surfaces while crawling, which enhances their sensory processing skills (Piper & Darrah, 1994).
4. Crawling Supports Brain Development
One of the biggest benefits of crawling is that it requires cross-lateral movement, meaning the opposite arm and leg move together. This strengthens connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which is important for later skills like reading, writing, and problem-solving (Levine et al., 2017). Research suggests that activities requiring cross-body coordination help improve attention, memory, and learning abilities (Gallahue & Ozmun, 2006).
4. Crawling Improves Vision Skills
As babies crawl, they practice eye tracking and depth perception, which are essential for later tasks like reading and copying from a board in school. Crawling encourages babies to shift their gaze between near and far objects, strengthening visual coordination (Levine et al., 2017).
5. Crawling Encourages Independence and Exploration
Once a baby learns to crawl, their world expands! Increased mobility allows them to explore their surroundings, interact with caregivers in new ways, and develop confidence in their movements. Research suggests that crawling babies engage in more exploratory behavior, which supports cognitive and social-emotional growth (Muentener et al., 2012).
What If a Baby Skips Crawling?
Some babies go straight to pulling up and walking, bypassing traditional crawling. While this isn’t always a concern, skipping crawling can sometimes mean a baby misses out on key coordination and sensory benefits. If your baby isn’t crawling by 10-11 months or struggles with tummy time and movement, a developmental screening should be performed to assess their motor development and provide activities to support their skills.
Activities to Encourage Crawling
If your baby is showing interest in movement but hasn’t started crawling yet, try these fun activities to build strength and coordination:
Tummy Time Play: Encourage longer tummy time sessions with interesting toys placed just out of reach.
Practice Pivoting: Encourage baby to turn in a circle to reach toys while on their tummy.
Place a cushion on the floor: Playing at different height surfaces which will help baby move in a variety of ways to strengthen their body.
Play on the floor with them: Learning new skills is always more fun with a supportive audience cheering them on!
Crawling is a foundation for strength, coordination, and learning. Encouraging your baby to crawl with fun activities can set them up for success in future developmental skills.
Citations
Gallahue, D. L., & Ozmun, J. C. (2006). Understanding Motor Development: Infants, Children, Adolescents, Adults. McGraw-Hill.
Levine, M., Oberklaid, F., & Elliott, E. (2017). "Early Motor Development and Later Learning Difficulties: Evidence from Longitudinal Studies." Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 38(4), 237-245.
Muentener, P., Fausey, C. M., & Carey, S. (2012). "Exploring Objects Through Movement: Crawling as a Window Into Infant Cognition." Cognitive Science, 36(2), 356-366.
Piper, M. C., & Darrah, J. (1994). Motor Assessment of the Developing Infant. Saunders.
When to contact us for support
Baby really dislikes tummy time.
Baby isn’t moving from sitting to tummy or tummy to sitting by himself by 9 months.
Baby is only scooting on their bottom to move.
Baby isn’t attempting to crawl or move about 10 months.