Most babies start crawling between 7 and 10 months old, though some won’t get moving until closer to 11 months. The best way to help your baby crawl is to build the strength they need through daily tummy time, create the right environment for movement, and use simple motivation techniques like strategic toy placement. Crawling isn’t just about getting from point A to point B. It strengthens bones and muscles, builds coordination between opposite arms and legs, and creates neural connections that support spatial awareness, memory, and visual perception.
What Comes Before Crawling
Crawling doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It’s the result of several smaller milestones stacking on top of each other over months. Babies typically start rolling from tummy to back around 6 months. Before they can crawl, they need to prop themselves up on straight arms during tummy time and sit up independently. Belly crawling, where babies drag themselves forward with their stomachs on the floor, commonly starts around 7 or 8 months and often serves as the bridge to hands-and-knees crawling.
If your baby hasn’t hit these earlier milestones yet, that’s where to focus first. A baby who can’t push up on straight arms doesn’t have the shoulder and core strength to support crawling. Working on those foundational skills is more productive than trying to rush the crawl itself.
Four Exercises That Build Crawling Strength
These exercises target the specific muscle groups your baby needs for crawling: the neck, shoulders, core, and hips. You can work them into your daily routine without any special equipment.
- Elevated tummy time: Place a rolled towel or your leg under your baby’s chest so they’re slightly propped up. This makes tummy time more comfortable while building neck, shoulder, and core strength. It’s a great option if your baby resists flat tummy time.
- Hip lifts: While your baby is on their tummy, gently lift their hips so their weight shifts onto their knees. This introduces the crawling position and activates the core and hip muscles they’ll need to hold it on their own.
- Reaching from tummy time: Place a toy just beyond arm’s reach while your baby is on their belly. Reaching for it forces them to shift their weight to one side, building the shoulder strength and coordination that crawling demands.
- Overlapping tummy time: Drape your baby partly over your leg or a cushion during tummy time. This challenges their balance and encourages pushing up through the arms in a playful way.
How Much Tummy Time Your Baby Needs
The NIH recommends two or three short sessions per day, each lasting 3 to 5 minutes. By around 2 months of age, babies should be getting 15 to 30 minutes of total tummy time daily. If your baby is older and not yet crawling, more tummy time is one of the simplest things you can do. Spread it throughout the day rather than pushing one long session, which tends to lead to frustration and crying.
The Right Surface Makes a Difference
Carpet is the best surface for learning to crawl. It provides natural friction that prevents slipping, cushioning that protects knees, and texture that gives babies’ hands and feet something to grip. The slight resistance also helps build the muscle strength needed for coordinated movement.
Hardwood floors are a different story. They’re slippery and require significantly more strength and control. If your baby is wearing pants and socks on hardwood, their hands and knees will slide around, making crawling much harder than it needs to be. If you don’t have carpet, a yoga mat, play mat, or exercise mat creates an excellent crawling space. Any non-slip mat provides the grip and cushioning your baby needs.
Barefoot time helps babies explore textures, improve balance, and build strength, especially during tummy time and crawling. That said, occasional socks and footies won’t derail your baby’s motor development. Just make sure they get regular time to feel the ground and move freely, particularly when they’re practicing new movement skills on a slippery surface.
Using Toys to Motivate Movement
Strategic toy placement is one of the most effective ways to encourage crawling, but the details matter. Place your baby’s favorite toys on either side of their body, just beyond arm’s reach, to encourage reaching and turning while on their belly. This reaching and rotating is a direct catalyst for crawling. If the toy is too far away, your baby will give up. Too close, and there’s no reason to move.
Toys that make noise work especially well when placed on a slightly elevated surface, like the edge of a low shelf. This encourages your baby to lift their chest and extend their arms to see the toy. Once your baby can hold a hands-and-knees position while reaching for something, try increasing the distance slightly to see if they’re ready to attempt forward movement.
One useful tip: choose a toy your baby can’t easily pick up off the floor when you’re trying to encourage crawling. If they can grab it quickly, they won’t need to stay propped up on both arms, and they’ll lose the strengthening benefit of the position.
Different Crawling Styles Are Normal
Not every baby crawls the same way, and most variations are perfectly healthy. The classic hands-and-knees crawl is what most parents picture, but your baby might choose a completely different approach.
- Belly or commando crawl: Your baby pulls forward while dragging their belly against the floor, military-style. Many babies start here before graduating to hands and knees.
- Bear crawl: This looks like the classic crawl, but your baby keeps elbows and knees straight, walking on hands and feet.
- Bottom scooter: Your baby sits upright and scoots forward on their bottom, using their arms to propel themselves.
Some babies skip crawling entirely and move straight to pulling up and cruising along furniture. Skipping a milestone isn’t necessarily a cause for concern. Developmental screenings during well-child checkups at 9, 18, and 30 months help track your child’s progress and identify if extra support is needed.
Why Crawling Matters for Brain Development
Crawling is far more than a physical milestone. It’s a period of rapid neural connection-building. Each time your baby solves a movement problem (navigating around a chair leg, reaching a toy across the room), their brain forms and strengthens connections. The more they crawl, the more streamlined and automatic these pathways become.
One of the key developments is cross-crawling, where babies learn to move one arm and the opposite leg together. This cross-lateral coordination links the two hemispheres of the brain and serves as preparation for walking. Crawling also develops spatial skills, the ability to locate objects by sight or touch, motor planning, visual perception, and eye-hand coordination. Research from Michigan State University highlights that crawling even supports more flexible memory when learning new skills later on.
Childproofing Before Your Baby Gets Moving
Once your baby starts crawling, they’ll have access to hazards that didn’t exist when they were stationary. Get down to floor level and look at your home from your baby’s perspective. Here’s what to address:
- Stairs: Install safety gates at both the top and bottom of staircases.
- Cabinets and drawers: Add safety latches to any storage containing medicines, cleaning products, laundry detergent, matches, sharp objects, or anything small enough to swallow.
- Furniture and TVs: Anchor bookshelves, dressers, TV stands, and other top-heavy furniture to the wall. Children who pull themselves up on unstable furniture can cause it to tip over.
- Electrical outlets: Cover unused outlets with protectors that are large enough to prevent choking and difficult for small hands to remove.
- Sharp edges: Add corner and edge bumpers to coffee tables, fireplace hearths, and other low furniture with hard corners.
- Window cords: Tie up or cut looped cords on blinds and window coverings. Children can become entangled in these loops.
Ideally, childproofing should happen before your baby shows signs of crawling. The transition from stationary to mobile can happen quickly, sometimes within days of the first belly crawl.