Gently give them support

You can softly hold their lower hip bones. Reduce support as they get more confident in sitting.

Add toys to the lesson

Put toys on a low surface or just out of reach to encourage your little one to prop themselves up.

Let them safely and gently fall over

In what will be a metaphor in life, you have to let your kid lose their balance and topple over every now and then, so they can learn to use their muscles to prevent falling. When teaching them to sit, you can surround their area with soft materials, like blankets, to cushion their fall.

Keep doing tummy time

Aim for 20 to 30 minutes of tummy time a day. Your baby will need to be able to lift their chest off the floor with their hands before they can sit up straight.

The quicker they can sit up, the faster they can learn and explore.

A study published in the journal Pediatrics highlights the importance of early motor skills as an agent of change over time. The same findings suggest a cause and effect relationship between motor skills and subsequent language learning in developing infants. Better control of the self-sitting posture is correlated with better hand coordination in reaching for objects.

Akhgar Ghassabian, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health and lead author of the study explained to CNN, “Our findings are consistent with those of longitudinal studies performed a few decades ago, showing that the age a child achieved major milestones of standing or walking were predictors of later child performance in memory.”

Want to know more? Download the entire study here.