By Lisa Stewart, PT, DPT
Physical Therapist, Julie A. Cole Rehab and Sports Medicine Clinic

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently eliminated a total of 216 milestones from their guidelines, including crawling. While the CDC has stated that there is no evidence that supports the idea that 75 percent of children will crawl, many therapists (including myself) still strive to encourage and teach our pediatric patients to crawl. 

As a child learns to crawl, the entire body is affected and progresses toward success with mobility. Initial reflexes are integrated during crawling. If these reflexes do not merge into a child’s development, it could cause many pieces of dysfunction. Maintaining weight bearing on all four limbs helps encourage visual tracking, their limbs moving forward in space, crossing the midline in tracking and scanning their environment.

Crawling is the first and only time a young child will be putting their weight through their upper extremities. Therefore, they are strengthening their arms for other skills as they age, such as writing, using scissors and dressing themselves. Crawling promotes and develops the vestibular and balance system, which allows for improved mobility when the child is ready. It also helps to develop the sensory system, cognition/problem-solving and coordination. 

Additionally, crawling prepares children for future gross motor skills such as independent sitting posture, balance, ball skills, reciprocal skills (stairs, skipping), and focusing and copying from the board at school. 

Ways to promote crawling is to start tummy time as soon as possible while the child is awake. Allow them to explore different textures and toys in tummy time and continue to promote increased time on their tummy. If your child does not like tummy time, start with short bouts of a few minutes initially and build up to 10-15 minutes at a time. The best place for a child to work on the skills for crawling is on the floor, working on the progression of skills from tummy time, to rolling, to sitting, then crawling and walking. 

If your child is not starting to crawl or not showing interest in crawling by nine months old, talk to your child’s healthcare provider.