When do I stop worrying about tummy time? I hear this question every once and a while. The truth is you always want tummy time, but the good news is that your baby will eventually not mind being on their tummy and use this position as one of their regular positions throughout the day. You might just find they actually prefer to be on their tummy! Essentially, at that point you won’t be as worried about tummy time as your baby will go there on their own!
When Do I Stop Worrying About Tummy Time
When this actually happens really depends on your baby. It’s usually at the point when your baby moves through all positions during play on their own. This means they can move from their tummy to side to back and from their back to side to tummy. Generally speaking rolling from back to tummy is the last of these skills that they will accomplish and this generally happens somewhere between 5-7 months.
The clear answer is you never stop worrying about tummy time. Your baby will eventually want to be on their tummy and will start to find ways to move being tummy down such as belly crawling and eventually crawling on their hands and knees.
My Experience
With my two boys I had two different experiences with this. With my first I would say that he like to move to and play in his tummy around 6-6.5 months old. At that point I wasn’t too concerned about doing traditional “tummy time” as he was spending lots of quality time on his tummy. With my second this happened at 4.5 months. Why so much earlier than the first I couldn’t tell you besides babies can be different and maybe the fact he has a big brother to keep up with! They both got lots of tummy time and limited time in baby holding devices without one being really any different than the other.