Gabe started crawling Friday for the first time! I got him home, immediately set him on the floor and enticed him by tapping playfully on a piece of paper. Gabe promptly got up on all fours, rocked back and forth, and began to make his way toward me. It wasn’t a fluid movement but a choppy form of forward locomotion that utilized several strategies for propulsion. I was probably about 6-7 feet away. In a matter of seconds he arrived, snatched the paper and proceeded to crumple it.
Gabe started with the crab crawl a couple of weeks ago. This is when the baby pushes with his arms instead of pulls and thus moves backwards. He enjoyed that type of crawl for about a day before he realized it wasn’t moving him any closer to the interesting things in front of him.
Then I observed him using the leapfrog crawl from time to time which involves the baby being on all fours and thrusting forward with both knees. During this time he also learned to push his whole body into a push-up position lifting his knees completely off of the floor. This impressed me as it’s a difficult position for me to perform! His strength and balance seems to be pretty good at this point despite his chubby belly!
Now at 7.5 months, his crawling consists of a combination of the leapfrog crawl and traditional crawling. He moves forward in the classic manner 2-3 times and then does a leapfrog and ends up on his belly on the floor. Then he gets up on all fours again and starts the process all over again. He seems to enjoy moving toward an interesting object.
How long will it be before he becomes very proficient at crawling? How long before he’s fast? Should I finish baby proofing immediately? Does this mean he’s ready to try quick dissolving finger foods like cheerios? I often see that the progression of food is linked to developmental milestones such as sitting, crawling, etc.
