Belly Crawling

Online Physical Therapy exercise program to strengthen your baby’s body for belly crawling. The program contains specific exercises listed in prioritized order, explained in text and shown on video on real babies. The program can be used from the time your baby is rolling from back to belly.

  • Prioritized, simple exercises
  • Designed for busy families
  • Illustrated with pictures & videos
  • Instant & perpetual access
  • Secure payment with QuickPay
  • English
  • Dansk
  • Deutsch

Available languages

299,00 DKK

(inclusive of all taxes, VAT and fees)

Program description

Developed by Danish pediatric physical therapist Maria Schultz Appelt, the program consists of evidence-based, playful exercises that strengthen your baby’s body for belly crawling. Belly crawling is your baby’s first experience with independent movement, so it’s a big milestone for them. Some people use this program when their baby is behind in motor skills, while others use it to inspire playful activities or to support their baby’s motor development in general.

If you have any questions about the program or are unsure about anything, please send me a message (perhaps including a short video of your baby) via my Instagram @develobaby or email at maria@develobaby.com.

Note: If your baby doesn’t roll over and has trouble lying on their stomach, these skills should be addressed before learning to crawl. You can find exercises in the exercise Tummy Time program.

Frequently asked questions to Belly Crawling

Crawling is the first milestone in which a baby moves forward on the floor, and there are two basic styles of crawling:

  • Belly crawling means lying on your belly, with your body weight on your belly, and using your arms and legs to slide forward without ever lifting your belly off the ground. This is the first crawling style your baby will learn. Once your baby gains muscle strength, they will begin crawling on all fours.
  • Crawling on All Fours means standing on your hands and knees and creating forward movement by walking on all fours. This crawling style requires substantially more muscle strength than belly crawling.

The program is designed for children who can comfortably lie on their tummy, roll from their back to their tummy, and are well on their way to practicing pivoting (moving around in a circle on the floor). If your baby does not yet have these skills, I recommend starting with the Tummy Time or Back Arching and Flat Head program, which include general strengthening exercises for these motor skills.

No, there are not! The exercises are simply general strengthening exercises in anatomically normal muscle patterns. The worst that can happen is that you will be supporting your baby’s motor skill development.

Because I know that many people find it overwhelming to fit exercises into their daily lives, I have organized the exercises in order of priority. The five most important exercises are at the top, so if you’re short on time, those are the ones you can focus on.

By doing specific exercises as part of all the little things you do with your baby during the day, you can usually help your baby progress to crawling quite quickly. Of course, this is individual and depends on your baby’s starting point.

The “skydiver” position is when your baby lies on their tummy and lifts both arms and legs instead of keeping them on the floor. Without both arms and legs properly on the floor, belly crawling is practically impossible. There is a section in the program with specific exercises in case your baby is doing the skydiver.


Frequently asked questions to exercise programs

After completing the purchase process successfully, you can access your exercise program here on the develobaby.com. During payment, enter your email address and password. After successful payment, you will see an additional heading in the menu called “My Programs”, including links to all the exercise programs you have purchased access to. You could be reading your first program in under 60 seconds from purchasing. When you come back to DeveloBaby.com after a few days, the system will have logged you out automatically. Then simply log in again with your email address as your username and the password you chose during the checkout process.

My exercise programs are accessible online here on DeveloBaby.com. As the programs contain video clips that couldn’t be played in PDF or other types of print, there is no downloadable or hard copy version. That said, using a PC/Mac you can in fact print the exercise programs you have purchased by pressing Ctrl+P on Windows and Command+P on MacOS when you are on the exercise program page. However, the programs are not specifically set up for this purpose, so it’s much nicer and more user-friendly to view it directly on your mobile, tablet or computer.

You have perpetual access. However, I am obliged to adhere to certain privacy data regulations (such as GDPR), which state that I cannot store customer data longer than necessary. Therefore, the system limits your access to one year at a time. When a year is about to expire, the system will automatically send you an email so you can easily extend your access if you want to keep it.

No, this would be against the terms & conditions. You purchase access for yourself and the people living in your household. If you, however, buy an exercise program as a grandparent, you can of course share the access with the person you bought it for. In contrast, if you are a manager in an institution and want to procure access to one or more exercise programs for your employees, please write to me so we can work out an agreement on multiple licenses. For contact details and more, please see my Terms and Conditions.

Current legislation states that the usual 14-day right of withdrawal does not apply to digital products. The reason for this is that it is virtually impossible to argue that you haven’t used digital products once you’ve logged in. Therefore, I do not generally offer refunds. Please read more about my return policy under Terms and Conditions.

Yes, I’ve gone to great lengths to explain each exercise in layman’s terms so that everyone can follow. There are also pictures and videos to accompany the exercises, where I perform the exercises on a real baby.

No, certainly not. In my exercise programs, I have put the exercises in prioritized order. There are a lot of exercises in each program, so in principle you can spend your whole day doing exercises if you find it enjoyable, but you can also choose to do the top three or top five, and therefore the most important ones. This makes the exercise programs suitable for everyone, no matter how much time and energy you have to spare.

The exercises are basically just strength training, just like when you go to the gym. They are designed to strengthen your child muscles wrt the exercise programs’ purpose, e.g. addressing back arching. Therefore, exercises will always make your child stronger. Whether your child achieves each milestone with good quality using the exercises depends, of course, on the starting conditions and whether there are any special conditions that would require a individually tailored approach. But no matter what, helping your child build a stronger body will never be in vain. For the vast majority, standardized exercises, as presented in my exercise programs, will help the child move on to the next milestone well and strongly.

Related programs

Note: when purchasing two or more programs, a 10% discount is automatically applied.

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Tummy Time

Tummy Time

Online physiotherapeutic exercise program with easy exercises to help your baby love tummy time as well as progress to a strong, good-quality back-to-belly roll. The program can be used for babies at all ages both as inspiration for everyday play time and as professionally designed exercise program for good motor development.
Asymmetrical Belly Crawling

Asymmetrical Belly Crawling

Online physiotherapy exercise program to rebalance asymmetrical belly crawling and to progress to a strong crawl on all fours. The program includes prioritized, easy to follow exercises explained in text and shown on video with real babies and is available in two versions, adapted for left-legged or right-legged asymmetrical belly crawling. The exercises can be used from the time your baby begins to crawl asymmetrically.
Sensory Integration

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Preferred Side and Flat Head

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Back Arching and Flat Head

Back Arching and Flat Head

Online Physical Therapy exercise program for babies from 8 weeks with back arching, “skydiver” posture or flat head. The program contains specific and prioritized exercises illustrated with pictures and videos with real babies so that they can be easily implemented in daily family life.
Crawling on All Fours

Crawling on All Fours

Online Physical Therapy exercise program to strengthen your baby’s body to master crawling on all fours. The program contains specific exercises listed in prioritized order, explained in text and shown on video on real babies. The program can be used from the time your baby masters belly crawling.

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Disclaimer

All content on DeveloBaby.com is based on recognized professional standards in Denmark, and you can expect them to be in line with the advice you receive in the public health system. If you find that your child has pronounced sleep or motor challenges, or that there is a lack of effect from the general exercises, I recommend that you make an appointment with me, either in person or online, so that I can customize the program for your child. If your child is unwell, please always contact your health care provider or physician. Read full disclaimer…