Tummy Time

6:23 a.m. -- 4 mos., 7 days

For 30,000 or so years, human beings allowed their infants to sleep in any position they pleased. Many of those infants slept on their stomachs. Somehow, the race survived.

For the last couple of decades, pediatricians have concluded that a few babies who sleep on their stomachs die. Much remains mysterious about the condition known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. But studies indicated that the main difference between the United States, where SIDS plagued a small number of families, and the rest of the world was that U.S. babies continued to sleep on their stomachs and sides.

So for the past couple of decades, thousands of U.S. pediatricians have warned parents that, unless their infants sleep on their backs at all times, they risk the horror of a child dying for no reason beyond their own grievous inability to monitor helpless offspring.

And so for the past couple of decades, millions of U.S. parents have spent countless hours sprinting into their nurseries to ensure that their babies have not somehow maneuvered their tiny kidneys away from their tiny mattresses and rolled to a SIDSian fate.

This pediatrician propaganda works, I can attest. When Baby A was less than a month old and spending a restless night, I spent a couple of sleepless hours with her sleeping on my chest. Because she was sleeping on her stomach, for two hours I counted her breaths, certain that each could be her last.

As my mind raced, I pondered whether any SIDS deaths had taken place when infants were sleeping atop an unstoned parent. But this mattered little to my implanted paranoia, which raged until I decided she was sleeping deeply enough to be moved. Having ensured that her back was plastered against the sheets, I, like most normal human sleepers, rolled onto my stomach and soon dropped off.

Beyond raging paranoia, all this back sleeping has begot another parental bane: Tummy Time.

Now that kids are no longer spending time waking on their tummies and learning to use their arms and backs to lift their heads, pediatricians have mandated that new parents become Personal Baby Trainers. So millions of parents now spend countless hours rolling their infants onto their stomachs and encouraging them to push up, bend, lift and strengthen muscles that are atrophying in the cause of SIDS prevention.

The main thing to know about mandated Tummy Time is that, like most rational humans faced with unwanted workouts, babies hate it.

The early days were particularly unbearable. Baby A couldn't turn her neck, and her tiny face would routinely mush against the blanket, carpet, or whatever fabric that makes up the Tummy Time Toys (play mats, cloth surfboard, etcetera) we were given. Once we turned her head to the side, she'd lie there, breathing uncomfortably, while we encouraged her to lift her head. This farce usually lasted about 60 seconds before we took pity on her and rolled her back.

As Baby A's neck has strengthened and she's learned to roll, Tummy Time has become less painful. Slightly. Unless or until she's tired, Baby A can use her back muscles to lift her head and look straight ahead, left, or right. That's positive.

But her arms are a different story. If we place them, elbows bent, on either side of her face, she'll use them once or twice to push herself up. Otherwise they tend to flail or flop far in front of her, or stay pinned below her torso, rendered useless. Occasionally she pulls all four limbs up and lifts her head, leaving only her torso grounded in an airplane posture. This is cute as all get-out, but it does nothing to build arm strength.

As her primary trainer, I have spent long sessions worrying how to counteract this flabbiness in my 4-month-old's biceps and triceps. I've kneeled astride her back, calling encouragement from above her head. I've lain with my face inches from hers on our bed and on the floor, pushing up my own head and torso while she smiles at my foolishness.

One shining day last week, I thought we'd solved the problem. "Up!" I said while doing a mini-push-up, and Baby A pushed up. "Down!" I said, my face falling to the bed, and Baby A put her head down, grinning hugely. "Up!" She followed. "Down!" She followed, the smile still plastered on her face. This continued for 30 exhilerating seconds and five repetitions as I decided that a). I had the smartest 4-month-old on the planet, and b). that Tummy Time woes were solved. Then Baby A tired of the game and turned her head in search of new stimuli. Despite enormous efforts, the commands have since sparked only amused or bewildered smiles.

How does one gauge whether Tummy Time even works? Mostly our training sessions succeed in inducing her to spit up, and I spend most of them wiping vomited milk from our Tummy Time Toys. Usually, despite lots of rolling and endless, giddy encouragement, after about 4 minutes Baby A ends up whiny and frustrated, with me following about 2 minutes behind.

Our kid's plateaued, with zero apparent interest in using her arms to push her head up or roll from her stomach to her back. Her adorably doughy limbs continue to demonstrate their worrisome paucity of tone. Can we buy tiny baby weights with which she can practice curls? If these came with suckable toys, Baby A would never stop pulling them to her mouth. (Maybe there's a business idea in there somewhere.)

As it stands, Baby A has not yet started to flail or scream at the very sight of her Tummy Time surfboard. Her father, on the other hand, has come to view its pink-and-white stripes and lime green pillow only through a lens composed of anxiety, fear, and dread.