Crawling Isn’t Cancelled: Why Physical Therapists Still Value This Important Milestone
Crawling Isn’t Cancelled: Why Physical Therapists Still Value This Important Milestone
In recent years, many parents have noticed something surprising—crawling is no longer considered a “required” milestone on some pediatric checklists. As children’s developmental guidelines are streamlined or redefined, crawling has quietly slipped into the category of “optional.” But if you ask a pediatric physical therapist, they’ll tell you: crawling is far from optional. In fact, it’s a critical building block for movement, coordination, and neurological development.
Just because a baby can go straight to walking doesn’t mean they should. Crawling may not be officially required, but it’s still incredibly important—and here’s why physical therapists continue to emphasize this milestone in early development.
The Hidden Benefits of Crawling
Crawling is more than just a cute stage between sitting and walking. It’s a powerful, full-body experience that lays the foundation for strength, stability, coordination, and brain development.
Here are a few essential benefits of crawling:
Core Strength and Stability: Crawling strengthens the muscles of the shoulders, back, abdominals, and hips. These muscles support posture, balance, and coordination for future movement.
Cross-Body Coordination: Crawling involves moving opposite limbs at the same time (right arm, left leg, and vice versa), which promotes communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This supports later skills like reading, writing, and problem-solving.
Hand and Wrist Development: Bearing weight through the hands during crawling builds strength and stability in the wrists and fingers, which is important for fine motor tasks like grasping, feeding, and handwriting.
Visual Development: Crawling improves visual tracking and depth perception as babies learn to coordinate their eyes with their hands and navigate their environment.
Body Awareness and Sensory Integration: Crawling provides rich sensory input through contact with the ground, helping babies learn where their bodies are in space—an important part of motor planning and coordination.
Why Crawling Gets Skipped—and Why That Matters
In today’s fast-paced, gadget-filled world, babies are often spending more time in containers like bouncers, swings, or jumpers—and less time on the floor. Add in baby walkers or early standing toys, and it’s easy to see why some infants skip crawling altogether.
While not all children who skip crawling will experience issues, some do show signs later on of poor coordination, delayed motor skills, or difficulties with attention and learning. Pediatric physical therapists often see children in preschool or kindergarten who struggle with balance, handwriting, or focus—challenges that may be rooted in skipped or incomplete movement patterns like crawling.
How Physical Therapists Support Crawling
When a baby isn’t crawling or is showing signs of delay, a physical therapist will assess their overall motor development, looking at strength, movement quality, reflex integration, and sensory-motor skills. From there, therapy becomes a playful, guided experience to encourage:
Tummy time and transitions (rolling, sitting, pivoting)
Reaching and weight shifting to build upper body strength
Motivated movement like crawling toward toys, siblings, or parents
Climbing, cruising, and obstacle navigation to promote coordination and exploration
Importantly, PTs also educate families—teaching parents what to look for, how to set up a movement-friendly home, and what kinds of play best support their child’s development.
Crawling Isn’t Outdated—It’s Underrated
Just because crawling has been removed from some milestone charts doesn’t mean it has lost its value. Milestones aren't just checkboxes—they’re windows into a child’s developing nervous system and movement foundation.
Physical therapists continue to champion crawling because we see the powerful ripple effect it has on a child’s physical, cognitive, and emotional development. It’s a beautiful example of how early movement patterns shape the way children interact with their world.
So if your baby isn’t crawling it’s never too late to benefit. Movement patterns can be revisited, integrated, and strengthened at any age with the right support.
Final Thought:
Milestone charts are helpful, but they don’t tell the whole story. If you ever have questions about your child’s motor development—or just want to better understand how to support them— our pediatric physical therapists are a wonderful resource. Crawling may not be required anymore, but in the world of physical therapy, it’s still celebrated as one of nature’s most brilliant movement patterns. If your child is struggling with this skill give us a call at 609-300-3963.
