Buy LESS Baby Stuff - A Q & A with Jessica Miklos

I recently asked my husband if he thought our kids had a good summer.

He replied, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

They camped, went to Wonderland, went swimming most days, spent time with family… We even spent a week in Costa Rica!

Sadly, this reminded me that no matter how much I do, it’ll always feel like it’s not enough.

This seems to be such a unifying feeling for parents.

That’s why I found it so reassuring talking to Jessica Miklos. She really puts an emphasis on less is more, especially in the early years.

Jessica is a former Montessori teacher and currently Bal-A-Vis-X Practitioner - a trained professional who uses physical exercises to help synchronize a person's visual, auditory, and motor systems with the goal to improve focus, coordination, and self-regulation.

We did a Q & A a couple weeks ago because I was excited to share her perspective on how movement in the early years is SO IMPORTANT for development.

She comes at it from the Montessori AND therapeutic perspective.

Her main point - buy less stuff!

1. When we talk about "freedom of movement" what does that actually mean? How is it different from simply letting a child move around?

The baby industry sells us many pieces of baby equipment aimed at making the parent’s life better, but nearly all of these pieces of equipment restrict the movement of the infant.

Examples: Bucket car seats keep a child in a curled position and restrict their access to peripheral vision. Bouncy seats keep the spine curved. Bumbo chairs prop children up before they have the strength to hold themselves up.

Some equipment is necessary for safety (e.g. car seats, while travelling in the car) but even that would ideally be strictly limited to travel.

Babies need as much time as possible lying flat on a firm surface so that they can learn about their bodies and how to move them in the presence of gravity. Babies are born with primitive or infant reflexes that guide them through a developmental trajectory that teaches them how to use their bodies efficiently.

When their bodies are held in positions other than lying flat with room to extend their limbs in all directions, the reflex patterns may not be able to do their work.

If babies learn inefficient patterns, these can remain in place for the entire lifespan without intervention.

As an illustration, imagine a baby who spends lots of time in a bouncy chair. It seems harmless, but it leaves the baby’s head propped at an angle, and doesn’t require the baby to support their own head to look around. One of the first motor tasks of the infant is to learn how to hold up their own head. If they spend many waking hours with their head propped rather than flat, chances are good that they will learn to control their head movement by raising their shoulders and tensing their neck muscles rather than activating movement using the top three cervical vertebrae. This can interfere with the development of their vestibular system (their sense of balance) and also their proprioception (their understanding of where their body is in space). Importantly, it can also leave them vulnerable to lifelong tension in the neck and shoulders and even whiplash injuries throughout their life.

So advocating for freedom of movement is very much saying "let your child move around" from the very earliest stages.

Think carefully about all of the equipment that is available, ask yourself whether it holds your child in a particular position. If it does, it may very well interfere with important developmental processes in the very early years.

Disclaimer: This is not an invitation to feel guilty about choices that were made before you had access to this information. very much a know better, do better situation. My own babies spent a lot of time in bouncy chairs because I didn’t have any of this information when they were that young. If reflexes do not integrate on schedule, specific movement inputs can nudge them towards integration. It is just easier to provide movement opportunities early rather than correcting course later.

2. What role does the environment play in supporting or limiting a child’s freedom of movement?  How can parents with limited space support freedom of movement?

The environment is critically important, but not in a "buy more equipment" sort of way.

Kids need a wide range of opportunities to move. And they need caregivers who both allow and encourage physical exploration of the environment. They need an environment that is physically and emotionally safe BUT that doesn’t mean that it has to look a particular way.

Kids need opportunities to:

• crawl, to walk, to run, jump, climb, spin, slide, etc.
• put things in their mouths
• use their hands extensively
• get messy and to get clean again.

They need spaces to be active and spaces to rest.

Those in small spaces would benefit from simply buying less baby equipment. Some foam mats for the floor give baby a place to lie on the floor. Many toys are a distraction from the baby’s own body (baby jungle play mats distract from the hands and feet, which appear to be separate things to the infant).

Learning about their own bodies is developmental task number one in infancy.

Even for older kids, less is still more. Get kids out of strollers as much as possible. Get them out of the indoor living space to parks, libraries, early years centres, community centres, etc or even just walking on the curb on a quiet street.

Movement is something that can be done everywhere. We don’t need to build little play fortresses at home. We just need to look around and recognize the opportunities that exist all around us.

3. What are some specific exercises or activities that would encourage this?

Babies

• Lie on the floor as much as possible until they get control of their bodies
• Use reflex hacks. Want to encourage your baby to latch? Stroke the cheek closest to the nipple or massage the palm of their hand. Both will tend to activate mouth reflexes
• Massage a baby’s hands and feet when they are tiny. Once they start kicking their feet, provide gentle resistance with a hand. This builds awareness of muscles and strength and leads them towards crawling.
• Resist the temptation to restrict a baby from bringing objects to their mouth. This is how babies learn about their midline. Without oral exploration, some developmental tasks will not be completed properly. If you are concerned about germs, find a way to keep things reasonably clean if baby can touch them (and remember that sterile environments are not, in fact, healthiest - the immune system needs interactions with normal microbes to learn how to protect us!). The stage where things are brought to the mouth will be shorter if you allow lots of oral exploration. Kids with retained oral reflexes are the ones who will go on to suck their thumbs and clothes for prolonged periods.
• Encourage crawling as much and as long as possible. First on the belly and later on the hands and knees. There is no prize for walking early, and there are negative academic implications of crawling too little. Crawling builds cross-lateral coordination and strengthens the corpus callosum (the part of the brain that facilitates communication between the two hemispheres).

Toddlers

• Identify times when you are not rushed, and let toddlers walk. Let them crouch to explore the environment and rest. Let them walk on uneven surfaces. Let them jump over tiny obstacles. Let them climb rocks, logs, curbs, play equipment, etc. Let them climb up the slide if they can (or discover that they are not quite ready).
• Monitor your own instinct to declare the world unsafe. There are real dangers, and adults must keep toddlers away from these, but it is not necessary to constantly point out every risk. Toddlers learn to navigate their environment by trying things out. If they want to do something that makes you nervous, you can ask them about their plan so that they think about it. But resist the temptation to remove them from every challenge.
• Similarly, you don’t need to "make them successful" at things that they are not ready to do. If they are not big enough to figure out how to get up on the monkey bars, it may be more appropriate to let them observe bigger kids than to lift them up and put them in a situation that they can neither enter nor exit safely on their own.
• Sing, dance, drum, clap. Whatever rhythmic activities that the family enjoys will help your toddler develop the parts of their brain that are vitally important for later impulse control, executive function skills and good auditory processing. If your toddler seems to have trouble keeping a beat, have their doctor ensure that their ears are not blocked with fluid and that they otherwise hear well. Hearing acuity and auditory processing are separate things but paying attention to your child’s hearing is the first step. Rhyming and clapping games are fantastic tools that are accessible to every family.
• Provide lots of opportunities to bear weight on the arms and shoulders. Let them carry heavy things. Let them crawl on hands and knees or imitate animals. Play wheelbarrow. Hang from play equipment.
• Pay attention to their balance and vestibular system. Many toddlers and preschoolers like being upside down. They like to spin and swing. Their brains are learning about balance and need to experience lots of positions to do this.

Preschoolers

• Provide lots of opportunities for gross-motor-play and introduce fine motor-play only when the child seems naturally drawn to it. Movements of the large muscles naturally come before fine-motor movements and sets the foundation for success with smaller muscle groups.
• Limit screen time where possible. Success with reading requires lots of visual experience with the world. Tracking moving objects in the natural world provides the practice necessary to establish good control of the eyes. By contrast, screens encourage ocular lock. Kids whose eyes don’t track smoothly will struggle to catch a ball, but also to track letters across a page.
  

4. What are some things that you don’t recommend parents do?

Introduce screens early. Screens draw the attention of users of all ages and lead to ocular lock.
Allow babies to spend more time than absolutely necessary in baby equipment that restricts their movement.

5. What are the long term benefits of providing children with "freedom of movement" in the early years?

Readiness for learning, socializing and moving confidently in the world, both emotionally and physically.

If you have more questions for Jessica, you can find her at https://www.thriveacademytoronto.ca/