How your baby moves! 

This month we are going to touch on how your little ones move their body! It’s a natural instinct to learn to move, and the natural progression from rolling, crawling, walking, running, climbing and jumping.  What’s tricky is that it takes 2 sets of muscle skills for them to be able to do this. These two muscle sets have to work together and  are known as the Gross Motor Skills and the Fine Motor Skills.   

Gross motor skills refer to how your little one uses their big muscles e.g.: their legs, core muscles and whole body. Gross motor skills help your little one walk, run, jump, crawl, hop, sit, stand and climb. 

Fine motor skills refer to how your little one moves their hands and upper limbs such as reaching, grasping, manipulating objects. Fine motor skills help you little one to tread, write, pick up small objects, point, colour and move things from one hand to the other.  

Babies:

At first we might not think that babies use their gross and fine motor skills but when we look closely at the way they move and interact in their every day lives we can see how they are using both muscle sets.

A baby uses gross motor skills to put their hands to their face, hands to their mouth, move their hands/arms across the centre of their body (crossing their midline), bringing a spoon to their mouth or a dummy.  

Babies use their fine motor skills by grasping objects such as toys, pulling mums hair, grabbing necklaces and fingers as well as moving a toy from one hand to the other. 

 Toddler:

Its much easier to see how a toddler is using their gross and fine motor skills in their everyday lives and it can be really funny to watch how they adapt to moving and finding their own unique way of getting around! 

Toddlers use their gross motor skills to crawl, walk, run, climb, riding a bike, kick and catch a ball. They use their fine motor skills to hold a pencil, draw/colour, pick up food or toys, put shapes in holes, point to pictures in books or things in their world, do up buttons, clap and manipulate play doh.  

Our bigger kids will use their gross motor skills to hop, skip, stand on one leg, kick and catch a ball and use a bat.  They use their fine motor skills for threading, tying their shoe laces, doing up buttons, tracing pictures and playing with playdoh. 

Practice, Practice, Practice ;) 

As your little one learns these skills they need time and opportunity to practice these so they can get better at them and master them! This can be really tricky as often their sleep routine takes a hit as they are learning and practicing their new skills such as clapping, sitting, standing.... even in the middle of the night!!! Something to keep in mind as your little one grows and gets better as using these 2 sets of muscles is that if you notice them using one hand/arm/limb or side of their body more or better than the other, pop in and see your local Child Health Nurse to have a chat about it.