Once babies conquer these stages, the next step is
4) Roll over on belly – Once their back musculature get activated and extended, then Baby is preparing to roll over, which usually happens around 3 to 6 months of age. We should not forcefully keep them on our tummy. Please never make this mistake.
They start trying to roll over on their belly. (Mostly, they turn from left to right, i.e., clockwise rotation) . They lift their hips with thighs and roll at one side, anchor their lateral foot,hip and shoulder and try to turn ,their other hand which gets stuck but with effort and failure they succeed and turn on their belly .
As rotation of Earth is anticlockwise, this rotation of clockwise force is an inbuilt, strong force within us. Hence, creating clockwise force within us is essential and vital to settle on earth,otherwise, we will disintegrate.
Here, rolling clockwise and anticlockwise is a very important factor to make us physically stable on the earth and further create anti gravitational force within our body as a biped and vertical structure.
Like a gravitational force, anticlockwise force is stronger than clockwise force.
Also, this rolling on their own is necessary to further create anti – gravitational force from lifting the front side of the body upward while anchoring the back side backward with gravitational force.
Babies keep repeating these movements until they succeed in turning on the belly and returning on their back. At this stage,they prepare themselves for the next unwinding stage of sliding on the belly.
This is one of the qualities of a nervous system that is a series of efforts – failure and success.
Distortion of spaces or correction of spaces within the body depends on the direction of efforts for the sequential movement of Musculature,as every reaction is dependent on its action. Therefore, the direction of force is most important.
If a child is normal, then It’s always better and most essential that the baby should not skip the natural order of unwinding .
It’s necessary to help them to do it themselves instead of creating obstructions, and our handling has to be correct.
Therefore , we should not place them on their tummy or should not keep babies on their tummy. If there are some problems, then you can be under expert guidance. But have patience, observe carefully and not to be in a hurry. Their healthy development is more important for their future health but always observe their poses and movement very keenly.
The only exception is, while giving massages and baths, we keep them on their tummy on our legs.
Let them make efforts, as unwinding on their own efforts with natural sequential order is essential for proper development of muscular architecture and the nervous system along with the physiology of organ systems.
Watch and observe carefully what obstructs them and help accordingly so they can make their own efforts..
This may be one of the reasons they skip this vital stage of sliding forward on the belly with movement of both girdles with opposite hands and legs.
So let Babies make efforts on their own to roll over an unwinding naturalization where clockwise and anticlockwise motion takes place to balance gravity and anti gravitational force.
5) Lifting head from chest – So when a child lies on its stomach and slowly starts lifting head and learns to hold head upright. As head is the farthest part from the gravity. The child learns to lift head first because it has to travel quite a distance from earth/ ground . So journey must start early. This is the movement that leads to the development of secondary curvature in the neck, and it develops the musculature, i.e., Paraspinal muscles of the neck. That’s why we can hold the weight of our heads.
While on their bellies, babies struggle to lift their heads from the chest by anchoring their hands with rolling their shoulders and pelvic girdle .
In the mother, womb babies are anteriorly in a flex position. Hence, all their efforts are for expansion and to extend first. Their movements are from periphery/ extremities to move the central axis, torso.
At this stage, from the shoulder girdle, the movement of the cervical with thoracic spine extension happens. This leads to vertical expansion of the rib cage.
This improves their strength for creating anti-gravitational force of front flexor muscles to extend by pushing extensor muscles backward with gravitational force. They’ll be able to lift their head off the floor from the chest to look horizontally, sliding forward and back side backward towards their hips.
By age 5/6 months, babies can control their head movements. Around 7/8 months of age, babies gain control and balance in their head, neck, and trunk. Most babies can balance their heads for short periods when in a stable position. Around this same age, the baby starts playing with their hands and grasps their finger on purpose rather than as a reflex.
Eventually, babies prop themselves up on their arms, hold their heads up, and look around.
And that first, sweet blink of surprise (“Hey, Mommy, I can see you!”) From a little one learning to lift their head is pure newborn charm.
They extend their neck and lift the chest forward from shoulders where the secondary curvature of the cervical spine is developed.
Here, the extension movement of the cervical , thoracic, and lumbar spine starts developing with the movement with activation of the Paraspinal musculature of the central axis, which governs our whole body systems.
This allows them to lift their head independently and use their forearms to support the upper body. They lift the chest forward, creating anti-gravitational force activating front muscles and anchoring pelvic girdle/ hips from legs with pushing back muscles backward, creating gravitational force.
These same muscles play a role in other gross motor skills, too — scooching, reaching, sliding ,crawling, sitting and standing, and walking, to name a few. At this stage, their motor skills start developing.
6) Sliding movement of serpent or reptile – This is a vital stage for activation of muscular architecture with its flow of direction. Here, development of the nervous system begins..
Baby starts sliding forward. where anti gravitational force is created with movement of front musculature and latticing of the torso takes place with opposite movements of both extremities.
Here movement is from one side hand, i.e., anchoring forearm with rotating shoulder girdle backwards lifting chest and abdomen forward and from big toe lifting opposite and slide forward simultaneously. Observe here they are doing flexion extension of knee from hip joint movement of pelvis and from big toe movement if foot at ankle joint. It’s a sequential order of movement of Musculature from head to toe and toe to head front musculature going forward and back musculature backwards. Knees are like bridge operating its components from hip and feet.
This movement of serpent/ reptile sliding with wave pattern , where extension and expansion take place, is most essential and important for further sitting and standing posture.
Most vital movement where neural pathways get form and nervous system start developing. Movement of Para spinal group of muscles begin which is essential for movement and function of digestive tract well along with all other organ systems.
Latticing movement of torso brings physical stability in any static and dynamic movements. Here movement of vertical axis from hand and legs begins.Which is vital for their physical, physiological and psychological development.
Remember these movements of infants are to move the torso from hands first that is rotational movement shoulder girdle called retroversion to create an anti gravitational force followed by movement of feet for rotation of pelvis called anti version for gravitational force.
At this stage, the development of a nervous system begins. With the opposite side movement of hands and legs activating sliding movement of torso happens
Here, the sliding movement of Musculature gives physical stability for the central axis for future stability and mobility of torso and physiological function of organ systems.
The reflexes they had just after birth started to disappear as babies gained more inhibitory control over their movements.
They also interact more with the people and things around them.
Once they achieve this stage successfully, the next level begins .
Try to understand that this sliding movement of the torso With the opposite side movement of hands and legs activating anti gravitational force from front with the gravitational force from backside is vital to become an upright human pose, sitting , standing and walking.
Therefore this sliding and crawling is the most important movement before the baby starts sitting.Note down that this same sequential order of movement of muscular architecture we have to learn intellectually and consciously in any Asana, if we really want to enhance our Organ systems, to become healthy in today’s lifestyle where sitting, standing and walking is killing us.
Skipping this stage and sitting directly without extending their spine and equalizing these four forces may lead to later age health issues.
At this stage, the development of a nervous system begins. With the opposite side movement of hands and legs activating sliding movement of torso happens
Here, the sliding movement of Musculature gives physical stability for the central axis for future stability and mobility of torso and physiological function of organ systems.
The reflexes they had just after birth started to disappear as babies gained more inhibitory control over their movements.
They also interact more with the people and things around them.
Once they achieve this stage successfully, the next level begins .
Try to understand that this sliding movement of the torso With the opposite side movement of hands and legs activating anti gravitational force from front with the gravitational force from backside is vital to become an upright human pose, sitting , standing and walking.
Therefore this sliding and crawling is the most important movement before the baby starts sitting.Note down that this same sequential order of movement of muscular architecture we have to learn intellectually and consciously in any Asana, if we really want to enhance our Organ systems, to become healthy in today’s lifestyle where sitting, standing and walking is killing us.
Skipping this stage and sitting directly without extending their spine and equalizing these four forces may lead to early age degenaration of spine and health issues. This we can see in today’s children. We ignore this real cause and its effect.
This awareness is essential in today’s lifestyle, where sitting posture has become a killing.
When children are placed in a seated position too early or for long periods of time without their own efforts, it may interfere with their development of skills. In other words, while your baby may indeed be seated upright, they aren’t working on the critical trunk and spine – head control ( extension ratio head- neck – spine / hypothalamus – adrenal axis) that will best develop when they’re practicing variations of crawling movements on their own.
We will discuss variations of crawling in the next part.
Sensory and motor development is the gradual process by which a child gains the use and coordination of the large and small muscles of the legs, trunk, and arms.
A baby begins to experience new awareness through sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing.
Babies’ motor development generally follows a typical order and pattern:
At 1 month of age, babies’ neck muscles are not developed enough to support their heads. Babies can lift their heads only briefly when they roll over and lie on their stomach on their own. We should always give support with our hand till they sit on their own.
By 6 weeks of age, newborn reflexes begin to fade, and the baby’s strength and coordination improve.
By age 6 months, your baby can control his or her head movements.
Around 6/9months of age, babies gain control and balance in their head, neck, and trunk. Most babies can balance their heads for short periods when in a stable position. Around this same age, the baby starts playing with his or her hands and grasps your finger on purpose rather than as a reflex.
During this time, babies purposefully roll over and may be able to slide forward with one hand, followed by the other hand. Most beautiful movement of children, the way they move from hand followed by their big toes with opposite movement of hand and legs ,latticing movement of body . Here nervous system begin to develop and hence baby should not skip this pose. After getting expetise in this reptile movement, they start lifting their body on hand and knee’s furter to prepare for classic crawling and to sit with their hands, balancing them in front (tripod position). Reaching toward an object with both hands, babies may grasp toys with their palms.
Between 6 and 9 months of age, babies’ balance and movement dramatically improve as they gain the use and coordination of small and large muscles.
Babies gain more control of their muscles between 6 and 9 months of age as the nervous system connections continue to form. By the 9/10th month, babies can see almost as well as an adult. Babies develop leg and trunk coordination, sit alone steadily, and may crawl using both their hands and feet. Some babies even pull themselves up to a standing position, although the timing and sequence of these milestones vary widely.
With the movement of pushing hands forward and lifting chest forward with abdomen, babies push their hips backward . Here, they keep moving both girdles with movement of front and back musculature in a synchronised manner with their hands and legs..
After trial and error, they succeeded, and in this process, they started sitting.Here The secondary curvature of the lumbar spine developed.
( Continue…)
Observe these movements carefully. As we have to learn these sequential movements of muscles like relay races intellectually in yogasana. These movements are of sequential order of muscles like strings of synchronized movement of pulleys moving in one direction only.
Here movement is from one side hand i.e anchoring forearm with rotating shoulder girdle for lifting chest and abdomen muscles forward and lifting/ pulling opposite groin and slide forward simultaneously from legs.
Here simultaneously from the pelvis/ hips back musculature is sliding backward.
This movement of the serpent/ reptile sliding with a wave pattern on the ground,where extension and expansion take place, This is the most essential and important movement of the torso for further bringing physical stability in sitting and standing posture for harmonious physiological function of organ systems situated within these body cavities.
Here laticing movement of the torso for stability and movement of the spine begins.
Which is very important to stabilize our body physically and physiologically.
At this stage, development of a nervous system begins. With the opposite side movement of hands and legs activating sliding movement of the spinal column happens.
Here sliding movement of Musculature gives Physical stability for the central axis for future stability and mobility of torso and physiological function of organ systems.
The reflexes they had just after birth start to disappear as babies gain more inhibitory control over their movements.
They also interact more with the people and things around them.
Once they achieve this stage successfully, the next level begins .
Try to understand that this sliding movement With the opposite side movement of hands and legs activating anti gravitational force with the gravitational force of the torso is vital to become an upright human pose, sitting , standing and walking.
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