Month: August 2018

Photo by Sue Zeng on Unsplash

Congratulations to all you pre-schoolers who have just started preschool!
Dinoduo hopes you are all settling in well and having lots of fun with lots of new activities and making new friends. Dinoduo loves to see all the bright new faces starting fresh or returning after their summer break.
It is recommended that a preschool child gets 3 hours active play every day. This can be hard to fit into a busy schedule. The start of a new preschool year is a great time to consider including some active travel into your child’s day as you travel to and from preschool. The mornings are lovely and bright. It is wonderful opportunity to lay down good foundations of active travel for life. Make wonderful memories as you hold your child’s hand while walking together or chat as they scoot or cycle alongside you. It is so much easier to give your child your full attention when you are not negotiating traffic.
Dinoduo loves to see children skipping beside their parents, touching the leaves as they pass a hanging bush, smelling flowers or jumping into a puddle as they make their way to and from preschool.
Try the following Active Travel ideas to and from preschool
• Scoot or cycle
• Walk
• Park the car a little further from the preschool so you get to walk or chat for a few minutes longer
• Skip along with your child
• Jump over the lines in the footpath
• Start a walking bus with other parents. Designate a suitable gathering point and a suitable time and walk together with other parents and children. A wonderful way to get to meet other parents

Does your pre-schooler find lying on their tummy hard work?  Do they wriggle out of the position into side lying or come out of the position after a very short time.  For some children it can be very difficult to stay on their tummy for any length of time. If your child is finding tummy time tough work, Dinoduo has some ideas to help.  Try the following when encouraging them to play on their tummy.

• Place cushions or a rolled up towel under your child’s chest bone to provide some extra support. Encourage your child to bring their elbows forward so that they rest in front of the roll or the cushion.
• Lie on a bean bag, with their elbows on the floor and the bean bag providing support under the chest bone.
• Lie over a peanut roll or physio roll (it is more stable than a therapy ball), sometimes available in the discount retail stores or online. See photo below. Place their books, toys , i-pad on the floor in front of them.
• Lie over a roll placed under the chest bone. Wrap and tape a towel around a filled 2 litre plastic bottle to make a perfect roll.

  

  

  

   

 

 

Dinoduo knows the importance of tummy time for pre-schoolers. The best position for playing on their tummy is to lie with the weight equally distributed through both shoulders on flexed elbows. The elbows should be positioned just level with or slightly forward of the shoulders like the girl in the photo. The hips should be level with both legs straight out behind. Some children get very tired in this position and have lots of strategies to compensate.

Watch out for the following as they may be signs that your child has difficulty taking up the tummy lying position and may need to strengthen their back and shoulder muscles

• Child refuses to lie on their tummy
• Child comes out of lying on their tummy after a very short period of time
• Child tends to collapse over onto one shoulder
• Child brings both knees up under chest
• Child brings one or two legs out to the side
• Child rolls into side lying
• Child lies flat on the ground after a short time on tummy

So c’mon.  Get a comfortable mat or blanket and   bring the toys, books and screens onto the floor and have your child spend 10-20 minutes every day lying on their tummy.

Tummy Time: Not just for babies

Tummy time is so important for young babies to help develop their motor skills. The Dinoduo know that lying on your tummy is equally as important for the preschool child.  Lying on your tummy for 20 minutes a day

• Develops shoulder and upper limb strength
• Develops stability in the shoulder complex as the child shifts weight from one arm to the other
• Develops back strength
• Develops balance reactions in the prone position
• Stretches the hip muscles to the front of the thigh
• Helps strengthen the stability muscles of the hip joint
• Helps model the hip bones to develop good joint alignment
• Develops the vestibulo-ocular reflex that is so important for  stabilising an image on the retina of the eye

And so much more, the list goes on and on.

Over the next few weeks Dinoduo will bring you lots of fun tummy time activities

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

copyright Dinoduo August 2018