Sunday, May 22, 2011

Tummy Time is Bullsh*t.

I just thought I'd let you all know that I have done about ten minutes total of tummy time with Otis in the past five months.  My doctor said I had to do fifteen minutes a day with him, all the books say you have to do it with them, moms talk all about tummy time.  And I just ignored everyone and didn't do it.  Just never got around to it. 

Do you think my son has a jelly neck and can't hold up his head?  Is he going to walk around with his head drooping on his chest forever?  Have I done something detrimental to him? 

Nope. 

We were at the children's museum last week and they have a little baby area.  I put Otis down on his belly in front of the mirror and up popped his little head, strong as can be.  He just stared at himself in the mirror, drooled all over, and cooed.  Just like any other baby at five months.  And then he rolled right over back to his back and went about his day.

I put him in the Moby and hold him up on my chest and do all sorts of other things where he has to hold his head up so why would I put him on the floor and listen to him scream for fifteen minutes a day? 

I'm not saying no one should ever do tummy time with their kid or judging you if you do it.  I'm just sick of so much worrying!!  It's so hard to be a mom and then you have doctors and books telling you what to do and telling you bad things will happen if you don't do them.  I wish we could turn off all the outside noise and follow our motherly instincts and just live.  And enjoy our happy children instead of worrying about all the terrors in the world. 

Wow, how did this go from tummy time to that?  Whatever, it's early rambling but there it is.  I think tummy time is bullshit. 

4 comments:

Mommy, Papa and the 'Nuts said...

I think they would actually tell people, "hey, hold your kid" if they thought people would actually do it. The Moby works his neck too...sooo... It may be mostly for the parents of the poor kids with wonky flat-heads that are always lying down someplace.

Beth said...

Agreed! I didn't ever do on purpose tummy time with either kid. My second is just 10 months and she's walking, so...yeah. Bullshit it is.

MaryAnne said...

I've never done tummy time consistently, and my kids can all hold their heads up. And they all learn how to scoot, crawl, etc (even if Lily crawled as little as possible before moving on to walking!)

Chari said...

If I recall I believe dr sears believes the first 6 months are ok for the baby to "live" in a baby carrier :-) I TRIED to do tummy time with my first but he HATED it and cried. HE was slow to roll over which made all the other things like crawling and walking push past normal development times as well. I thought it may have been due to the lack of tummy time, but really who knows!