In this video, NAPA PT Rebecca shares how to incorporate supine (laying on back) to sit transitions during diaper changing. She demonstrates how to do this step by step, while also explaining how beneficial this can be for your baby. We hope you find the video helpful. If you prefer text, we have the video transcribed for you below!
Today I am going to be showing you how you can incorporate supine to sit transitions into your diaper changes at home. So, supine is just a fancy way of saying ‘laying on your back.’ In this activity, we’re helping the baby go from laying on their back into sitting up into a sitting position.
Supine to sit transitions are good for strengthening the child’s head muscles, trunk muscles, and allowing them to participate in transitioning their body instead of always being transitioned by their parents or caretakers.
So, if your child is oriented in the direction where their feet are facing you (demonstrated in video at :41 seconds), an easy way to do the transition is to put your hands in the middle of their trunk. Your thumbs and fingers should be facing one another (make sure you’re not poking your child in any way!) Hold at the middle of the trunk, nice and firm. First, the child will turn into side lying position. The shoulders are stacked on top of one another and the hips are stacked on top of one another. Then start going up into the sitting position. You can go nice and slow at first, wait for the child to participate, then as they do, you can go a little faster.
Good job baby!
Then you lay him or her back down gently onto the changing table.
If your changing table is oriented in the other direction (demonstrated in video at 1:25), you can do it a different way. Put your fore fingers behind the shoulder blade and your thumb on top. Nice and firm. You hold the opposite leg with your hand at the lower part of the leg. You put that leg into a tabletop position, turn the baby side-lying as we did before. Shoulders stacked on top of one another and hips stacked on top of one another. Turn the leg in, and then we start going up into the sitting position nice and slow. Wait for the baby to help you, and as he/she does, you can go up a little bit faster.
This, as well, you can do going in both directions so the child is nice and even.
In this example, the child was activating their head and trunk muscles on this side and he/she feels happy that he/she helped you in the transition up to sitting.
That’s a few ways you can incorporate supine to sitting transitions into diaper changes, and I wish you luck!
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