A Tip from Susan Regarding Crawling Baby Girls in Dresses
If you have a young daughter, granddaughter, etc. it is important to not dress them in those cute girlie dresses when they are crawling and learning to crawl. I recently asked one of my patients if her granddaughter was crawling yet and she said yes, but it?€™s sort of a funny type of crawl. She thought it might be due to the dresses her granddaughter wears as her knees get caught on the material and she then does sort of a ?€?drag the leg?€™ type of crawl. Upon discussing it, I agreed that the dress is definitely inhibiting the normal crawling pattern.
What a lot of people don?€™t know is that the standard cross-crawl pattern (opposite hand/leg forward) is a VITAL neurological development step. Impairing the child?€™s ability to do a lot of correct crawling can manifest later in learning difficulties, delayed speech, etc. This is also the reason that I don?€™t recommend the use of rolling walker seats as it bypasses this so-necessary cross-crawl pattern.
Do what you can to help your baby crawl normally for the most long-term benefit and hold off on those totally cute dresses for when they are walking.
Love,
Susan
