Okay, Let's Talk Tummy Time

One of the most common questions I get

One of the most common questions I get is some version of: “My baby hates tummy time—do we really have to do it?” In fact, just yesterday I got this exact question from a new play group parent (hi, you know who you are—and I loved your email!). Because it comes up so often, I thought I’d take a moment to share how I think about tummy time—through the lenses of RIE, natural development, and real-life parenting.

Here’s the email:

Hi Courtney,

Day-yum, I LOVED Friday's group! Thank you so much for the opportunity to see other bebes and meet new people. I am excited to see them all over the course of 8 weeks.

Do you have space for a parenting question? If so, re: tummy time --> yeah we like it or no we don't? CHILD’S NAME gets lots of tummy time on my shoulder but he seems really upset when I put him on his stomach on the ground. What's the RIE opinion of this? If you feel like responding, great. If not, maybe I will bring it up on Friyay.

Enjoy the sun,

ADULT’S NAME

Photo by Gustavo Cultivo on Unsplash

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**Quick disclaimer before we continue: I’m not a doctor, and I’m certainly not giving personalized medical advice about your specific child. I’m an educator. I know how babies learn, how relationships are built, and how patterns between parents and children start forming—early.

The Case For Tummy Time: The American Academy of Pediatrics Recommendation

HealthyChildren.org—the American Academy of Pediatrics’ official site for families—is a trusted resource I regularly recommend to parents. It’s reassuring to have one reliable place to turn to, especially when the internet (hi, Dr. Google) can send you spiraling.

In its article “Back to Sleep, Tummy to Play,” the AAP encourages families to begin tummy time right after birth—starting with short, supervised sessions of 3–5 minutes and gradually building up to 15–30 minutes a day by around 7 weeks. The goal is to support muscle development and prevent flat spots from too much time spent lying on the back.

The Case Against Tummy Time: The RIE/Pikler Recommendation

Janet Lansbury—RIE Associate, beloved baby blogger, and host of the Unruffled podcast—has a guest post on her site titled “The Case Against Tummy Time” (written by Irene Lyon). The title alone gives you a clear sense of where the RIE philosophy stands on the matter.

RIE’s founder, Magda Gerber, was deeply influenced by Hungarian pediatrician Dr. Emmi Pikler, who pioneered the concept of natural motor development in the orphanage she ran in Budapest. Through decades of observation, Pikler found that babies placed on their backs—not propped, positioned, or even prompted to move—breathed more easily, had a wider visual field, moved more freely, and generally seemed more content. Based on these observations, caregivers were instructed to place babies on their backs for both sleep and play, trusting that each would reach motor milestones in their own time. Relevantly, Janet Lansbury recently interviewed Elsa Chahin, President/CEO of Pikler/Loczy USA. They had a conversation about natural motor development that you can listen to here: The Joy of Letting Babies Move Freely.

Notably, the babies of Loczy were not plagued by the collective fears of plagiocephaly (flat headedness) nor torticollis (a head stuck turned in one direction) — the Pikler babies spent time on their backs, yes, but never in contraptions that restrained their movements (swings, bouncers, chairs, etc.) and when they were on their backs, they weren’t bound under mobiles or otherwise constrained by “play gyms.”

Here’s What I Think

I really like and trust our pediatrician. His approach is to provide detailed explanations and plenty of information so families can make informed decisions, which I usually really appreciate—and try to emulate in my own work with parents. But every now and then, I just want to know what he did with his own kids. Given how much he knows, I’d trust that his choices were both thoughtful and well-informed.

In other words, sometimes a trusted anecdote can be just as helpful as the data. So, if, given my background, I happen to be that trusted person for you and you happen to be looking for some real-life stories about tummy time, here’s how I approached tummy time with my own children.

Tummy Time with our First Child

With our first, we did tummy time—but not with a stopwatch or a rigid routine. I was just beginning my RIE journey, and while I’d already heard the advice not to place a baby in a position they can’t get into themselves, that phrasing felt (and still feels, tbh) a little... oversimplified. After all, we move babies’ bodies all day long—to diaper, dress, bathe, feed. There is active handling involved.

That said, I had absorbed the core idea that if you’re going to move a baby’s body, you should involve them in the process as much as possible. This is a tenet of RIE that feels just plain respectful. If we think humans have a right to know what’s going on with their bodies, we should give them that dignity from the beginning because if not from the beginning, when?

So tummy time, in our house, probably looked like this: our baby was hanging out on his back on the floor (which is where he spent most of his time when he wasn’t being actively cared for), and I’d gently roll him onto his belly, saying something like, “I’m going to roll you onto your tummy now—our doctor says it’s good for building your muscles. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

If he was content, great. If not, I’d acknowledge it: “This looks hard for you. You seem uncomfortable. I’m staying with you—and let’s give it another moment or two because they say a little struggle helps.” I’m into radical candor and wanted my baby to know why I put him into such an uncomfortable position.

Was this the purest RIE approach? No. RIE doesn’t promote tummy time. But most American parents hear about it from their pediatricians, so I think it’s useful to offer a respectful way to do it—if you’re going to do it. And for us, this felt like a thoughtful middle ground: informed by RIE, rooted in relationship, and delivered with clarity and care.

Tummy Time with our Second Child

With our second child, I was (shocker) less anxious about following all the “rules.” I felt more confident, especially with a deeper understanding of natural motor development—I had completed a 60-hour RIE training by then, along with postgraduate coursework in Infant and Toddler Mental Health. So, we did far less of the conventional tummy time... nearly none, actually. But here’s something that can’t be emphasized enough: both of our children spent an incredible amount of time lying on their backs on the floor. That might sound counterintuitive—after all, tummy time is often seen as the antidote to “too much back time.” But in reality, tummy time has become a kind of shorthand for all floor-based play, while much of a baby’s day is still spent in containers. For us, the floor—on their backs—was simply the best place for our babies to be when they weren’t in our arms or being actively cared for. Because of all this floor time and their intrinsic readiness, both of my kids self-initiated tummy time relatively “early” which meant that they would often choose to play on their bellies on the floor — the position from which other gross motor movements initiate.

With our second child, we leaned more fully into the principles of respectful, self-initiated movement. Here’s why:

Psychological Security
I often think about the message we send when we ask babies to do something they’re not yet capable of doing. Think of a baby tipping over from a propped position. Think of a baby screaming in tummy time while a parent takes a picture. If we want our children to feel safe, competent, and trusted, that starts from day one.

Physiological Readiness
A newborn’s head is about 25% of their body length —it’s heavy and big! When babies aren’t strapped into swings or bouncers or distracted by overhead mobiles, they tend to move their heads side to side naturally while lying on their backs. They round their heads out beautifully, preventing “plagiocephaly” or flat-headedness. As long as there’s no tightness, moving their heads back and forth happens quite early due to the the cephalocaudal trend (head-to-toe control). Watching a baby track you with their eyes and turn their head on their own is its own kind of tummy-time magic, one that might convince you to consider what is visually interesting to them — your face, the bamboo outside their window, a peaked scarf in their periphery.

Natural Motor Development
Typically developing babies don’t need to be “taught” to roll, sit, crawl, or walk. They get there in their own time, provided they have safe space and freedom to move. Of course, if your baby is receiving OT or PT support, follow your provider’s specific guidance—but for most babies, letting them initiate tummy time means they arrive with the strength and balance to enjoy it for longer stretches of time than if they had been placed there by an adult.

Child-Led Learning
Just as I don’t feel pressured to present the perfect toy at the perfect moment, I also don’t feel the need to decide when my baby is “ready” for a new milestone. I trust them to get there—and when they do, they do so with confidence, competence, and ease. This approach prevents them from becoming dependent on adults to position their bodies for play and supports a deeper sense of agency and judgement.

Tummy Time Approximation

Occasionally when we were out and about, my husband or I would carry our baby in a sling or carrier. I breastfed her and changed positions frequently for my sake and hers. She spent time napping on her belly on my belly and chest. We also paid attention to whether or not she was preferring to look to one side or another and changed her position on her changing table and how we put her in her bassinet, accordingly (to subtly encourage her to twist her head both directions).

We did not use bouncers or chairs of any sort preferring, instead, to place our babies on their backs on a blanket on the ground.

High Quality Floor Time

Because we didn’t have bouncers or chairs, both of my babies spent a lot of time on clean, flat surfaces. To break it down, here are some things that we considered:

• Less is best for play — hard fabric (think: cute, but stiff Carhartt overalls), layers (puffy sweaters), bibs that ride up to occlude vision, and mittens and socks that block sensory input make it difficult for babies to experience full traction and freedom of movement. As much as possible, we tried to give our babies lots of unencumbered floor time — even without a diaper (which is especially important if you’re using bulky cloth diapers).

• No (well, very few) mobiles — when a mobile hangs above a baby’s head, they are more likely to look at it, laying flat on their head. If objects are offered on either side of the baby, the baby will more naturally turn their head (and eventually their bodies) to look at and grasp the objects. I sure did geek out over the Montessori mobile progression and offered them sparingly to each of my kids, but in general, they were free to turn their heads, get up on their sides, and eventually roll.

• Clean, flat, firm surface — as one of my parenting prep participants once said, “I get it, you wouldn’t do yoga on a squishy mattress.” It doesn’t have to be hardwood floor, usually people put out a blanket or mat, but it can be hardwood floor — see here for a beautiful example in natural motor development.

The point is that babies can (and should!) be on their backs on the ground, as long as they are in a safe environment. As you may know, I for sure showered with my pre-mobile babies on the bathroom floor…

Cognitive Dissonance

New parents are trying so hard to get it “right.” They follow tummy time guidelines by the book, but when their baby protests or cries, they feel caught: Do I honor my baby’s distress or follow my doctor’s advice? That’s a painful position to be in. I wish more pediatricians would talk not just about tummy time, but about the power of high-quality, container-free floor time. I really believe that if more infants were trusted to move freely—without being placed in restrictive gear or hurried along to meet milestones that assume adult manipulation of baby bodies—much of the stress around tummy time (for babies and parents) would soften.

Of course, the capitalist internet doesn’t exactly help. There’s an endless stream of products claiming to make tummy time more fun, more educational, more tolerable. Toys, gadgets, classes, and all kinds of contraptions designed to keep babies quietly immobilized—so caregivers can finally “get something done.” But what if the magic isn’t in the gear or the intervention, but in the simplicity of letting your baby be?

In that spirit, I’m sharing a personal photo series: our family's progression of container-free floor time that eventually led, on its own timeline, to self-initiated tummy time. These are vulnerable, everyday moments from our real life, so I’ll be placing them—along with some gentle pointers and observations—behind the paywall. I hope they offer you reassurance, encouragement, and maybe a little inspiration to trust the floor (and your baby) a bit more.