Your Baby Will Learn Better by Sitting Up
Photo: GoodToKnow / The Bump
Break out the Bumbo seats – a new study suggests that your baby may learn better when he or she is sitting up!
Rebecca Woods, the assistant professor of human development and family science at North Dakota State University said recently, “an important part of human cognitive development is the ability to understand whether an object in new is the same or different from an object seen earlier.”
Research now reveals that infants (ages 5.5 or 6.5 months) don’t use patterns to differentiate objects on their own but 6.5-month-olds can be primed to use patterns if they get a chance to look at and touch objects. This is why sitting up is so important. “An advantage the 6-and-a-half-month-olds may have is the ability to sit unsupported, which makes it easier for babies to reach for, grasp and manipulate objects. If babies don’t have to focus on balancing, their attention can be on exploring the object,” Woods explained.
The study was recently published in the journal Developmental Psychology.
Do you think this is true?
Plus, more from The Bump:
Baby Milestones: What Will Baby Do When?
When Will My Baby Start Sitting Up?
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The Nest Blog
I never used a Bumbo, and both of my children sat up a little before or by 6 months old. Children will strengthen their core by taking part in tummy time, by a parent holding them on their lap and reading to them, and just by the pure process of development that is different for each child. My friends whose children sat in Bumbo seats did not sit up any earlier. We ought to be reading to our infants, engaging them with silly faces and conversation. I’ve never seen a 1 year old who couldn’t sit up on his/her own unless they had other health issues to consider. Encouragement is important, but this is over-thinking things a bit. If you want to use a Bumbo, go ahead, but from a former teacher and child care caregiver in daycare centers that did not use them, there is no developmental delay from NOT using a Bumbo.
I haven’t used a Bumbo for my daughter, and she’s developmentally advanced when compared to other 7 month olds. She was crawling at 4 months, standing and 6 months, and sitting up at 5 months, all without the help of a Bumbo. She’s been amazingly alert since a month or two after she was born. We engaged her in conversation, read to her every night, gave her (probably “too much,” according to some pediatricians) tummy time a majority of the time, and just let her discover things at her own pace. I’m not sure a Bumbo would’ve helped. If anything, I see it as possibly a hindrance because she wouldn’t have been forced to do things/figure things out on her own.
We used a Bumbo because my son was desperate to sit and couldn’t. We used it sparingly but it made him so happy and he hit the sitting milestone by himself, right on time. Oh, and he HATED tummy time.
I really think kids do everything in their own time and all the tools and tricks we use to “advance” them are for the adult benefit. As long as we give our babies the opportunity we’re wasting our breath and energy hot-housing them to advance faster.