Does tummy time maximize human potential?
- Jan 25, 2025
- 15 min read
Updated: Jul 24
My quick short answer is no.
It doesn't maximize potential.
Are you open to looking at this topic another way?
This post is a permission slip for parents not to feel guilty if they are uncomfortable with tummy time because your child doesn’t like it. Pass this along to any parent or grandparent interested. I'm manifesting that people who really need to read this blog post will find it.
This information is for general education and for wellness purposes, does not constitute medical advice. Consult your healthcare professional for personalized guidance.
"...there are many possible Leonardo da Vinci’s out there. Latent abilities are hampered and made inoperative through scientific ignorance..."-Moshe Feldenkrais
New parenting is caveat emptor. Latin for let the buyer beware. Defects may be hidden from the buyer, only known by the seller.
Good decisions need quality information.
I've asked parents to voluntarily skip Tummy Time for years.
“I’m a busy mom; I don’t have time to do the homework.”
I'm giving you the info shortcuts. Historical relevant facts are needed.
We are better off without a recipe for the general population. Go with what the child prefers. Infants are not supposed to lie on their backs all day long during waking hours. They need to be carried and held—not all the time, but some of the time.
We are all wired to be competitive. Why not try competing for a week to be the most comfortable parent among your peers, with the most comfortable baby (6).
The big EDGE or advantage early on?
“Optimize the otolithic (inner ear) standardization period using rotational movement” for a baby in the first 6 months (4).
Look at how a baby is before beginning to crawl, in the early stages while lying on their stomach. The head is reflexively as it would be as an adult. The cervical spine is in a position allowing freedom of the head to move on the atlas and axis, the top 2 bones in the neck.
At that moment, the head is truly vertical. The afferent 8th cranial nerve is optimized (the labyrinthine ear vestibular system comes online). The eyes see the horizon most comfortably (4). The learning of the head position transfers to adulthood posture.
(You can see what I'm describing in the video at the end of the post, look at the Elizabeth's head position at minute 4).
Infants learn to use voluntary muscles to maintain an optimal head position while rolling to the belly optimizing how to use the optical righting reflex (4).
What keeps us vertical in adulthood, learned as an infant? Anti-gravity mechanisms (5)
righting reflexes (neck righting, body righting, optical righting)
balanced tone (partial tension) distribution
attitude (posture)
Asymmetrical or one-sided tension of the neck muscles rights the head or puts the head on straight. Your brain uses your eyes to detect changes in the visual field.
You see, the optical righting reflex keeps the head and eyes aligned with the horizon. The visual input triggers an automatic muscular response in the neck, correcting the head's alignment so it stays upright against gravity.
Humans are under cortex or cortical control that can override involuntary righting reflexes. You see the override with poor posture. Cortical control means the brain cerebral cortex, the outermost top layer of the brain.
The cortex is the central area of learning habits, acquiring temporary reflexes, and what you hear about with anti-aging brain neuroplasticity.
Faulty optical righting reflex in an infant can be noticed by the trained eye and knowledge of a skilled practitioner.
Does your baby fix their head so that the eyes can see the horizon most comfortably?
Is the face of your baby in a vertical position like they would be standing? (4).
If your baby always holds her/his head to one side, or you wonder about what I described above, you might want to first check with your pediatrician to make sure that everything is okay. Then, perhaps get a checkup and lessons with my colleagues worldwide.
The cheat code to better performance in life?
Critical for survival in adulthood is moving fast from a good standing head position. Moshe Feldenkrais based on physics, believed rotation is the advantageous edge for resiliency and is so well developed in humans because they turn faster than animals (4,5).
Bull fighting, baseball, boxing, martial arts need rotation and well working optical righting reflex. Our cylindrical bodies make the moment of rotation as small as possible.
During the first 6 months, the child will indulge in rolling on the ground from right to left and vice versa.
Why rotation is so important?
The rolling first coordinates the EYES, and BALANCES the tensions or tone in the extensor/flexor muscles. Also, the infant uses inward-spiraling motion to build up energy to rise up against gravity.
Look at the living energies of water and motion in nature. Our body is mostly water. Life is movement of fluid. The infant must deal with the fluid dynamics and mediated pressures of gravity. Inward spiraling nature uses to build up and energize. Outward expanding flow is used to break down.
The infant accrues energy with rolling to spiral up off the ground and go from sitting to side sitting (knees tilted to one side) to all-fours, to hands and knees, then come up to standing.
Ever notice the whirlpool of water or vortex next to a large rock or at the bend in the river?
The heaviest water-the densest water will be found at the center of the swirl. With rolling the infant creates a longitudinal vortex along their spine.
The big question.
When you do Tummy Time does your baby continue their curiosity?
Continue to explore?
Or does your baby get defensive or protest?
True learning is an acquisition of a new response.
Repeated tummy time activates the neck survival reflex. Explains how and why infants lift their head on the belly early on from repeated belly positioning. Infants are under the influence of survival reflexes the first 6 months.
Strength is perception. Basic principles of exercise are simple, strengthen what is weak. Both stretching and strengthening lands way different with infants than adults.
The infant’s belly pressure stimulates exteroceptive or body receptors, then the tonic neck reflex induces neck extension. The head is righted by labyrinthine (ear) + exteroceptive righting reflexes.
Let’s thrive not just survive.
Forced positioning early on abnormally shapes nervous system regulation from an over concentrated demand on the neck extensor tonic muscles. Intuitive Moms pick up on this.
Do you want unregulated nervous system issues add to the man-made chronic childhood disease epidemic?
Forced positioning increases the risk for faulty adult posture.
Forced positioning increases the risk for “learned helplessness”. Look at the puppy animal studies I talk about soon.
Parents want a child that navigates the world with ease, form attachments, develop skills, and becomes an effective learner (1,2).
Perception of science, human development, and psychology varies among cultures and are prioritized differently. We are the SAME in many ways...
Sensory= Afferent conveying signals toward the central nervous system...
Motor= Efferent carry signals away from the central nervous system.
If you live in the U S., then priority is given to milestone achievement or motor “efferent” systems driving movement and behavior, since movement systems are objectively measurable. Biology only.
Cech and Martin suggest many different biophysical, psychology, social cultural, anthropology theories of human development (11).
Forgotten in the United States?
causation in biological systems early on compared to adults
the ABC’s of how infant reflexes work
inhibition within the brain and nervous system
most nerve fibers extending from the brain are afferent & sensory.
The brain simply is driven by 2 pedals. A gas pedal, excitation. A brake pedal, inhibition. For example, cerebral Palsy is excitation without a dimmer switch of inhibition.
If are using wearable technology you are working with afferent nerve fibers, nervous system regulation, and the vagal nerve.
Tummy Time advocates forget about the pyramidal tract's “inhibition” function in brain development. The efferent nerve pyramidal tract messages the cortex to skeletal muscle for voluntary movement and begins to form at 6 months of life.
Growth of the pyramid tract extinguishes many survival infant survival reflexes. Infants know only excitation and discrimination early on.
How did we arrive at Tummy Time?
Chronology can be a struggle because it’s not real.
Once upon a time in 1904 Novel Prize winner Russian Ivan Pavlov was the first scientist to say how the body reacts physiologically to certain irritations of the nervous system.
Anthropologists and Pavlov's views are that brain function specialization evolves from evolution. Watson & Skinner in western humanistic psychology talked about small parts of Ivan Pavlov’s work is way more than just food rewards and dogs (7,8).
Pediatric professionals assessing milestones and infant reflexes are unknowingly using Pavlov's reflex discoveries.
Pediatricians maybe are not fully aware of the history of Russian brain science and the application of the survival reflex arc feedback loop Pavlov talked about.
Pavlov was mentored by Ivan Sechenov. If you ever did a pith frog biology experiment in high school or college, that came from Sechenov. Sechenov is known discovering inhibition, and for his 1862 vagal nerve demonstration (7).
Pavlov said the optical right reflex is under cortical influence. Unique to humans and higher animals like monkeys. Pavlov said humans under cortical control can override involuntary righting reflexes. I notice search engine AI input folks need to correct this.
Pavlov’s puppies’ research demonstrated activating a passive defensive reflex inhibits the exploratory reflex, evoking escape and fear instincts. Apply this to infants.
Pavlov investigated the body's natural ways of shutting down to overwhelming stress or electric shock. Pavlov described byproducts of stress, learned sequences, or dynamic stereotypes (PTSD).
Pavlov's found the first time an animal experiences inescapable stress, learned helplessness can make it very susceptible to a quick death, but a single experience of escape creates the perception of possibility, allowing it to mobilize all its resources for survival (7).
Discounting science based on its Russian origin?
Pavlov was clear in saying that his purpose was eventually to explain how human consciousness works.
Pavlov was motivated to study the trending survival of fittest Darwin teachings during anti-bureaucratic times after the Russian revolution. Vladamir Bekhterev his peer discovered the hippocampus for memory, the first to map out the brain, and published 600 papers on brain function and defensive reflexes.
In 1947, forensic anthropologist child development expert Wilton Krugman at the University of Pennsylvania Children’s Hospital led a collaborative perinatal project (1959-1974). Krugman established physical growth standards used today like when you hear parents talk about percentile for weight or height with an infant. (2).
Krugman stated, “Man has absolutely the most protracted period of infancy, childhood, and juvenility of all form of life.” (1).
Ignoring evolution and anthropology?
Pavlov and anthropologists say we have a mammalian and reptilian brain. Infants first learn to tap novelty in their mammalian brain, or new movement experiences. Pavlov talked about "what is it? orienting reflex in the reticular activating system. (7).
Dr. Spock, the child development expert back when I first became a parent said, “pick up your child when they fuss”.
In the 1940’s and 1950’s the hierarchical/ reflex brain development model was popular. The model, based on Pavlov's work, said that (11,5)
the central nervous system is hard wired
voluntary movement is controlled by higher cortical brain level
the lower brain centers control more primitive survival reflexes. (11, 5).
Neuroplasticity researchers are proving the brain/reflex development model is valid (10).
Why activate the threat detecting amygdala? The amygdala is an almond-shaped cluster of nerve cells. A central role in regulating survival instincts (10). The pain management evidence-based folks are talking about the amygdala and nervous system regulation.
In the 1960's psychology researcher Stanley Milgram did some controversial obedience experiments. If Milgram was alive, I wonder what he thinks of Tummy Time. Milgram was influenced by the 1961 former Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann’s trial when he said he was “just following orders”.
Congress granted pharma companies financial immunity for vaccine injuries with the 1986 childhood vaccine act. If vaccines are so safe, why do they need immunity from harm? The law removed an economic interest to ensure safety of vaccine products.
I remember as a new parent when sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) popped into the news in 1992. Pediatricians recommended babies sleep on their backs in 1994. Pediatricians observed in 1994-1998 sleep positioning slowed down milestones.
The new context was do Tummy time because babies need stronger necks. Trends were new products, infant bouncy seats, toddler walkers, carriers, torticollis, and flat head issues emerged.
Working with an infant with torticollis had me baffled earlier in my career. Later I realized after working with many infants with defensiveness, torticollis and difficult births are made worse by Tummy Time. Now there are swaddlers that restrict motion and the mechanical beds like the SNOO.
When infants are on their backs, you may want to change the way you position them in their crib so to see the door or respond to the light coming from windows, they will turn their head to the right when lying in one position. When you reposition them 180 degrees, they will then turn their head the other way.
When working with infants, I've noticed defensive movement from forced uncomfortable positions. When I've worked with Amish infants and children there wasn't defensiveness. I didn't have to negotiate with Amish parents to stop Tummy Time. They never heard of it.
I’ve noticed large amounts of energy have been sent to the neck extensors, back, and arms needing to dissipate, stuck energy I’ve had to soften. When there is nothing to get the extensors to relax, it excites mainly the pain receptors and elicits further defensive contraction.
Tummy Time was also recommended to prevent flat head issues.
We arrived at the Tummy time policy being a downstream byproduct addressing the symptoms of SIDS?
Proper double blind clinical trials and properly assessment for safety risks are not there. The long-term risks are not identified without the lengthy double-blind study. The authors left out an Alberta double-blind gold standard study.
Regarding the SIDS task force. What’s the probable risk of SIDS likely to happen compared to something else?
Build the safety risk profile...
70% probability of SIDS cases are brain stem injuries. The 5 ht serotonin system abnormalities. Why not put the spotlight back on this?
2-2.6x risk for SIDS cases is prone positioning. This focus has driven the Tummy Time trend.
Most SIDS cases occur in the first 6 months.
Was Tummy Time invented to avoid vaccine hesitancy? Deflect attention away from an issue that contradicts their beliefs or economic interests. If you review the vaccine clinical trials the level of safety you expect is not there. Risks are not identified without a proper clinical trial.
The good news is SIDS brought awareness to infant safety with cribs, clutter, parent lifestyles, positions, etc.
How much corporation influence is in the health policy maker decisions? The revolving door with government agencies and the private sector influences decision making.
A recent trend with parents is vaccine hesitancy with questions after review of the vaccine clinical trials and post license data like I have (3).
I wonder why Finland and the region has very low SIDS rate according to the 2022 task force? James D Cherry did say in his journal article of "The 112-year Odyssey of Pertusis Vaccines" that Sweden stopped using DTwP vaccines.
If you are using aura technology, Finland developed it. Why not use aura technology with infants to prove or disprove during a clinical trial?
What are the tribal agreements in the United States that led to the persuasive Tummy time trend?
Our mammalian brain has a persuasion loophole. Follow along and not get kicked out of the tribe. We unconsciously project society’s values of on to infant development, such as
“pain no gain strength”
“we are what we produce hustle culture” white knuckle it.
"go to specialists and follow the safe and effective evidence-based science".
milestones have become society’s permission slip to act doing tummy time.
Normal infant learning gravitational adjustments. Some call it developmental sequence.
1. Reflex response generally activates the flexor muscles from withdrawal of support or sharp change in position. Flexor tone is dominant the first month.
2. Loud noises begin to elicit a similar response stimulates the vestibular nerve
3. Soon the eyes follow light, head turning to assist eyes, look up and down. 2 visual fields overlap and one eye controls the position of the other.
4. Then raising the head is learned on their back
5. Followed by hyperextensions. The interval between raising the head and hyper extension is short and ill defined. The stretch reflex being activated
6. Sitting up, learning rotation continues by minimizing gravity along the way
7. Twisting the body. The neck curve develops. Establishment of symmetry.
8. Crawling. Hip control. The head get raised higher and higher.
9. Walking. the pyramidal tracts continue to grow and develop
I didn’t crawl as a child. Scooted on my but. At age 40 I relearned gravitational adjustments as an adult that I had failed to learn better in my childhood. I have 30,000 hours studying human development and gravitational adjustment details. Look, look, look at the Elizabeth's head position at minute 4. I met Elizabeth, her mom.
PS if interested more details...
Movement scientist Moshe Feldenkrais worked in Paris with Marie Curie's son-in law Frederic-Joliet-Curie. In the The Elusive Obvious, Feldenkrais talked about his 40 years of work.
“It is fascinating as any story on growth and learning to watch how a baby becomes capable of rudimentary and not quite intentional contractions of his flexor muscles to roll over to one of his sides, and then onto his belly, and use the extensor muscles lift his head.” (4)
Babies are guided by each attempt that feels less awkward, not forced movement, and repeating each new action clumsily at their own rate until they have enough of it when intention equals execution.
When we are born, we can’t regulate our nervous system. Infants need caregiver’s help building a database of history (2). All infants know are survival reflexes and are not receptive to low stimuli brake pedal info yet. The falling reflex is the only fear they know. The falling reflex is when the infant suddenly lowered, or sharp withdrawal of support (5).
Canadian Hans Seyle’s in the 1950's expanded on Pavlov's work, his reaction, shock and stress research (9). Is it safe, dangerous, or life threatening? Our brain evaluates signals from the body and environment in a process of triage. Stay the course, or go into fight or flight, or freeze or hibernation.
There are misconceptions about Pavlov's conditioned reflexes and instincts because of the Slavic word temporary translating into our Latin word conditioning. Instincts are inborn unconditioned reflexes. That is different from acquired conditioned reflexes called habits that can be temporary (7).
Pavlov was clear in saying that his purpose was eventually to explain how human consciousness works. Pavlov spoke of an instinct or reflex for exploration, for liberty, for dignity, for procreation, for defense, for food, righting reflex, effect of person reflex. Emphasized is the "what is it? orienting reflex in the reticular activating system. (7).
The falling reflex contracts flexor/abdominal muscles to lift the head avoiding injury, infants hold their breath, fold into a safe fetal position ball. Evolution gave us the falling reflex to increase chances for survival during earthquakes. In that falling fetal position, trauma is dispersed through the bones, protects internal organs, if they land on the ground (5).
Pavlov’s new brain, cortical brain. "Highest" part of the brain. Center of learning habits, acquiring temporary reflexes, and brain plasticity. Pavlov said, the afferent nerves have "latent reserves". Modulate motor output. The sensory image map forms hologram-like images. Novelty changes habits. No direct access to muscles.
Pavlov’s old brain, subcortical brain. Unconditional reflexes or instincts. Message conduction to/from cortex. Afferent analyzer system incorporating efferent links feedback loop. The autonomic nervous system or ANS has sympathetic/parasympathetic (veg out) branches, a vagal nerve, and nociceptor threat detection in the brain stem.
OK, there is an irritation from outside, very sudden or novel. Like being placed in an uncomfortable position or stretched. The first reaction is a reflex arc.
Pavlov found reflexes are temporary, decay and weaken. If there is a repeated strong irritating stimulus, called induction, then the sensor activation network lights up with excitation. 30-50 repetitions can establish a reflex in couple of days.
Eventually there is fatigue. The upper trapezius neck muscles need to dissipate surplus energy. Pavlov said sleep is the generalized inhibitor to prevent complete exhaustion of the nerve cells. Muscles then need to restore potential energy to have power to contract again.
The falling reflex has multiple unfolding stages, position, then sounds. Development professionals are educated about the Moro reflex emphasizing arm activity only. The falling reflex stimulates the abdominal and neck flexors, inhibits the anti-gravity in the back, and dorsal extensors. I know of many various approaches that offer value to an infant by inhibiting the falling reflex, which never disappears.
With the infant, tone in the neck extensors develops indirectly by voluntary lifting the head on back with flexor activation. In other words, the infant uses systemic causation involving reciprocal interaction. Very complex.
Only in the third month does the baby occasionally begin to arch its body, pressing the head backwards. When an adult lifts their head, the neck flexors contract, inhibit the agonist neck extensors forcing them into a lower state of contraction. When the infant’s flexing is strong enough to raise the body to sitting position, the neck extensors slowly develop tone to not let the head drop forward.
The upper trapezius stretch reflex in the neck needs time to become fully operational with the infant. EGT Liddells and CS Sherrington discovered this in cats in 1924. The stretch reflex first phase contraction is proportional to elongation, next the second phase the muscle starts contraction. The steps are slow and in many steps. Synchrony with breathing sets muscle tone.
Sir Charles Sherrington won a Nobel Prize in 1932 for his work on spinal cord inhibition, synaptic events, animal reflexes. The infant creates movement by a game of opposites. Using balanced muscle pairs involving reciprocal interaction through their agonist, using the stretch reflex. Less is more; less force creates more movement. Oscillatory flow of contraction from one muscle to the opposite pair called antagonism (4).
1 Move Into Life. Anat Baniel.
2 Kids Beyond Limits. Anat Baniel.
3 Vaccines Amen. Aaron Siri.
4 Elusive Obvious. Moshe Feldenkrais.
5 Body and Mature Behavior. Moshe Feldenkrais.
6 Chase Hughes, behavioral expert. Loopholes in the Mammalian Brain.
7 Ray Peat. Mind and Tissue. Russian Research perspectives on the human brain.
8 Ray Peat Newsletter. Serotonin: Energy, Degeneration, and Aging. July 2019.
9 Ray Peat Newsletter. Shock, inflammation, resistance, epigenetics. May, 2014.
10 Brian E. King, Ph. D. Calming an Overactive Brain. Institute for Brain Potential CEU class.
11 Donna Joy Cech PT Suzanne Martin, PT. Functional Movement development across the life span
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