Cruising is an important gross motor milestone that occurs when a baby steps sideways while holding on to a safe and stable piece of furniture. Cruising facilitates core, hip and leg muscle development, standing balance, and is a crucial stepping stone (no pun intended!) to independent standing and walking.
This is a milestone that is typically reached around 10 months of age. Before your baby can cruise, he or she needs to be able to stand, accepting weight evenly through both legs, with 1 or 2 hands supported at a safe and stable piece of furniture, such as a couch or ottoman. Many babies are excited once they can start standing on their own at a piece of large furniture, although they often do not know how to move around.
Here are a few useful tips to help your baby learn how to cruise:
- Place toys a few steps away in either direction. If your child has the toy she is interested in playing with right in front of her while she is standing at the couch, there will be little motivation to move. However, if you place the toy just a few steps away, your baby will be highly motivated to try and get to the toy. Make sure you don’t place the toy too far away though, as that might encourage your child to crawl to the toy instead, or your child may lose motivation due to feeling that the toy is completely out of reach.
- Show your baby how to cruise. Since the cruising motion is most likely different from any other movements your child has performed, he may not know that he can step sideways or how to activate the muscles required to do so. When your baby has both hands supported on the stable piece of furniture, slowly and gently elevate the lead leg off the ground, move it a small distance to the side, and then bring the other leg to meet it.
- Practice! Learning new gross motor skills takes lots and lots of practice. Babies learn through trial and error, so the more that they work on a new skill the better at it they will become. Give your child frequent, supervised opportunities to practice cruising.
