Guide to the Crawling Stage: Helping Your Baby Towards Their First Steps
An article by Laura Mittet, Pediatric Physiotherapist

During your baby’s first year, they go through a remarkable motor development – from lying helplessly on their back as a newborn, to rolling onto their tummy, creeping, crawling, and eventually walking.

When your baby begins to crawl, they enter an exciting new phase where they can move independently and explore their surroundings from a whole new perspective.

In this article, we take a closer look at the crawling stage – how crawling builds on earlier movements such as rolling, pivoting, and creeping; why crawling is an essential step in your baby’s motor development; and how you as a parent can support your baby – both leading up to and during the crawling phase – through play and everyday motor activities.

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From Creeping to Crawling

As your baby grows stronger and becomes more coordinated, they begin to lift themselves up onto all fours – with hands, knees, and feet on the floor.

From here, they often start to rock back and forth until they discover how to move one arm and the opposite leg in turn – and thereby move forward in a crawl.

Crawling is an important developmental milestone that shows growing body control and maturity. It also gives your baby the opportunity to build strength and stability in the spine, hips, and legs – all of which are essential for standing up and eventually walking.

When your baby takes their first crawling steps, they may only move a few paces before continuing in a creep, as that still requires less effort.

In the beginning, the knees may slide out to the sides because your baby has not yet developed sufficient hip strength. Over the next few weeks, your baby will gradually get stronger and refine their movements.

Why Crawling Matters for Motor Development

When crawling, your baby develops several key skills that form the foundation for the next stages of movement:

  • Cross-pattern coordination: As your baby moves one arm and the opposite leg at the same time, the connection between the left and right hemispheres of the brain is strengthened. This cross-lateral movement is important for later motor and cognitive skills such as walking, running, reading, and writing.
  • Strength and stability in hips and legs: Bearing weight on the knees helps build strength around the hip joints and promotes balanced muscle development between the right and left sides – important preparation for standing.
  • Stability around the spine: Crawling requires your baby to bear much of their weight on the arms and shoulders while keeping the back stable against gravity. This strengthens the core and the muscles surrounding the spine, which are essential for good balance in an upright position.

Through crawling, your baby practices strength, stability, coordination, and balance – all crucial for standing up and taking those first steps.

Activities and Play that Support Crawling

A crawling baby learns best through active exploration. As a parent, you can support your baby’s development and motivation for movement by creating a safe and stimulating environment that encourages play.

The Environment

Just like in the creeping stage, your baby now needs space to move freely – but over longer distances. Remove small objects or anything unsafe so your baby can explore without worry.

Allow your baby to experience different surfaces such as smooth floors, carpets, and mattresses. This variety gives opportunities to experiment with movement, muscle work, and new challenges.

Obstacle Course

A fun way to motivate and challenge your baby is to build small obstacle courses:

  • Use cushions, blankets, mattresses, or your own legs for your baby to crawl over or around.
  • Use balls, toys, or even yourself as motivation at the other end.
  • Expand the play with tunnels, boxes, or low steps as your baby gains confidence.
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Toys as Motivation

Toys make crawling practice both fun and educational. Choose toys in different sizes, weights, colours, and textures to stimulate the senses.

Moving toys:

  • Use balls, cars, or wheeled toys that roll away and encourage your baby to crawl after them.
  • These strengthen coordination, balance, and cause-and-effect understanding.

Stacking and sorting toys:

  • Building blocks, shape sorters, or toys with several parts offer varied play.
  • They support fine motor skills and coordination between the left and right sides.
  • Small toys that can be held while crawling train grip strength and body control.

When toys can be used in many different ways, your baby will spend longer exploring and experimenting – maintaining attention and developing both motor skills and problem-solving.

The Sitting Position

During the crawling stage, your baby will often learn to sit up independently – usually from a side-lying or crawling position, using what’s called the “mermaid position,” where both legs are bent to one side. The sitting position is only developmentally appropriate once your baby can get into and out of it independently.

When your baby can sit up on their own, it’s a sign that they’ve developed enough strength, body control, and balance reactions to hold the body upright and react safely if they lose balance.

Sitting gives new opportunities – free hands for play and the ability to move between different positions (from tummy to crawl, crawl to stand, etc.). However, sitting is a more passive posture and gives fewer movement experiences than lying on the tummy or crawling.

For this reason, it’s best not to sit your baby up until they can do so independently. During meals, when sitting upright is necessary, a highchair can help – but return your baby to the floor as soon as mealtime is over.

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Awaken Curiosity Through the Senses

The senses continue to play a central role during the crawling stage. Toys that stimulate multiple senses are especially engaging. Toys with fun buttons, different textures, sounds, melodies, or mirrors that reflect the baby’s face can be placed just out of reach to motivate movement and exploration.

The 3 Primary Senses

Sense of touch

Registers texture, temperature, and surface feel.

Proprioceptive sense

Provides body awareness – where the body is and how it moves.

Sense of balance

Helps the child maintain balance and orient themselves in their surroundings.

Crawling gives your baby a new level of independence and freedom to explore the world. Through crawling, your baby strengthens coordination, cross-body control, and balance – all essential for standing up and taking their first steps. In addition, your baby develops spatial awareness and the ability to plan movements.

As a parent, you can support your baby in this stage by creating a safe environment and encouraging different kinds of physical play, giving your baby the confidence to explore beyond their immediate reach. The crawling stage is therefore an important transition – where your baby builds strength, stability, and confidence before taking those first independent steps.

Crawl & Explore

Laura Mittet | Motorikland

Laura Mittet (34) er mor til tre piger, børnefysioterapeut og cand. pæd. i pædagogisk psykologi. Hun har mange års erfaring med børn – både fra kommunalt regi, privat praksis og børnepsykiatrien.

I 2022 blev hun en del af Rødovre Fysioterapi og Sundhedshus, og var med til at starte Motorikland – et univers for babyer, børn, gravide og forældre i tiden efter fødslen. Her tilbydes fysioterapi, holdforløb og forskellige workshops med fokus på bevægelse, leg, nærvær og faglig tryghed.