Natural Gross Motor development

I probably have written about natural gross motor development, and how to support it, already before - when Adelaide was a baby. But I will repeat once again, what it means for us now. Again and again, even in Estonia, where actually natural gross motor development is the norm, I see people once in a while doing these things that are wrong.. At least in most cases they are bad for the baby's physical development. 

What are we doing - to support Jasmiina's natural physical development?

Basically, it's simple - it means - don't make the baby do anything (or put him or her in such position) that she cannot do (and achieve!) herself. The achieving part is actually important. Because often, for example, people think it's fine to put baby to sit up, when they kinda are able to sit, they are stable enough to not fall over, but it's still not completely right - actually we shouldn't put them to sit up as long as they haven't independently achieved the sitting position themselves - gotten from horizontal position to sitting position totally all on their own. (This is actually a big developmental milestone - as it enables babies to do so much more - and it doesn't happen as early as people might think, Adelaide sat up for the first time when she was almost 8 months old. And yes, here I admit, that we did put her to sit in the highchair for the meals since about 6 months, when we started introducing food with the Baby Led Weaning method (because it's important that the baby is sitting up straight for safety reasons, not laid back). But we did it purely for eating purpose, and didn't make her sit more than that, before she was able to.)

But what do we do (or don't do)?

• It starts with handling - meaning, everything, how you touch, take and lift up the baby. We try to follow the basic tips - for example - when changing the diaper, we don't grab her by the ankles and lift her butt up, instead - we lift one leg at a time, rolling her from side to side. Also, when lifting her up from a lying position - we try to roll her through one side (changing those sides). Basically, the movements should be flowing and not too sudden to avoid any unnecessary tension. 
• We mostly keep her on a flat surface. In the bed, on the lambskin, in the stroller (pram).. The surface, I guess, shouldn't be either too hard or too soft, once she grows and gets stronger, we will put her straight on the floor.
• OR we babywear her, which is great for the baby (when doing it correctly and ergonomically - either in an ergonomic baby carrier or a wrap, and not facing out, as that can't be done ergonomically).
• We keep her in the car seat only when necessary - only for car rides, and car rides shouldn't be long (some say they shouldn't be longer than 30 minutes at first, but that's a bit unrealistic..), when we went to Latvia with tiny Adelaide and the car ride was 4 hours, we made one stop in the middle. Being in the static position in the car seat is not good for the baby, it's really wrong to use the car seat for any other purposes. 
• Same thing actually with all kinds of baby chairs and swings.. Ok, for a little while it's probably fine to put the baby there (we have one such chair too, right now using it very rarely), but the less the better (yes, even the fancy babybjorn chair).  
• Of course - no baby walkers (where you put the baby in a position that he or she can't influence himself, I'm not talking about the Montessori walker wagon - that is fine, as the baby himself does it, only when he is able to), swings, jumpers, no weird rubber chairs for babies who can't sit.. Basically - babies don't need all that kind of gadgets, they don't need almost anything. Safe space to sleep, and then - simply the floor.
• And about the tummy time - some think, and some doctors suggest, that babies should be put on their tummy like every day and so.. Or else - like our doctors loves to say - they will never learn that! :D Yes, never will lift their head. Well, this has been proven to be false, and you don't have to put the baby on their tummy, especially if they don't like it. If they do.. Then it's fine, for some time. Soon enough they learn to roll over, and then it's theirs to decide.
  For the first month Jasmiina didn't like to be on her stomach really - naturally, as she can't lift her head (would you like it?!), but now she's getting stronger, and for a couple times I have put her, just for a little while - and she is trying to lift her head and is quite happy to look around. Then she gets tired. 
• Well, and then the sitting thing - we keep her in our lap, but in a laid back position, she shouldn't be put up to sit straight, as her spine is not yet able to support her head, and it can cause problems. Of course, we also don't put her to sit anywhere else.
• What else? That's all I remember for now.. Well, we also don't put babies to stand on their feet, we don't walk them around, while holding their hands before they can actually walk - it's bad for their health and also dangerous, as it's a lot safer, if they get from the floor and crawling position to vertical position, standing and walking, all on their own. They fall less then, and learn to fall from the very beginning the correct way. For adults it's sometimes so hard to just wait and let the children learn themselves..

Yes.. And one more reason to not rush these things. Babies would love to see and do more than they are able to.. That's why they try so hard until they succeed.
But if you start putting your newborn with their head higher, or in a bouncy chair, so they can see better.. They will very likely want to be like that instead of being just on the floor (and will demand it). Same with sitting and standing, and walking - so fun! That's one more reason to keep these things in mind.