Exercises and Activities to Teach Your Baby to Sit

In order to teach your baby to sit up, you can and should help them gain strength with certain exercises. Learn more.

Reviewed and approved by the doctor Nelton Ramos.

Written by Andria Navarro Taño (Agetna)

Last update: 27 December, 2022

There are very simple exercises and activities that help teach your baby to sit up. Their regular practice will allow you to gradually notice your child’s advances. For this to occur, patience and perseverance will be essential.

The best thing about these exercises is that your baby will perceive them as a kind of game, and therefore, they’ll provide them with a fun time and a lot of tenderness. Keep in mind that this is an activity in which mother and child can share a sort of  ”gymnastics” session.

Before starting to put these exercises into practice, you should consult with your pediatrician. We must take into account that if the baby has passed other stages in their psychomotor development, such as keeping their head raised, turning to lie on their stomach or face-up, and trying to sit up when you hold their hands.

Exercises to teach your baby to sit

Exercise 1

Lay a blanket on the floor and put your baby on it in the face-up position. Sit in front of them and take them by the hands. Encourage them with words and gestures and proceed to pick them up, little by little, as if it were a game. Wait for them to sit down and then lay them down again.

Exercise 2

On the floor, on the blanket, set your child down in the seated position and hold them by the hips. Wait a few seconds and put them down to rest. Repeat the exercise five or six more times.

Exercise 3

When you pick your child up, do so horizontally. It’s possible that this is the position that your little one likes the most precisely because, from it, they have a better perspective of the world around them. So, take advantage of this and carry them by holding onto their bottom and allowing them to reinforce their spine and detach themself a little from you to support themself.

Exercise 4

Sit your child on your lap to sing to them, clap their hands, or play any other game. Every now and then, they lift their back off from you to sit for a few minutes almost on their own. To help them a little, you can hold them by the arms.

Exercise 5

On the floor and on the same blanket as before, put your little one on their back. Put a toy on top of them and encourage him to take it. Your child will try to stretch a bit and this will strengthen their back muscles.

Exercise 6

Place your child on their back on the floor. With one hand, hold their legs and encourage them to stand up, while with the other, you lift him by the hands until they’re fully seated.

Activities to teach your baby to sit

The activities and exercises that we’ve proposed should be carried out as long as the child feels comfortable with them. For no reason whatsoever should you force them to sit up if they start to cry.

Remember that they’re learning to sit, yes, but that meeting that goal isn’t exactly what matters to him. Their only interests are toys that move, those with bright colors and smiling faces, so at all times, you must stimulate them through play.

Although you’re trying to get your child to strengthen their spine, hips, and muscles, this is achieved little by little. One or two exercise sessions per day will suffice, not exceeding 3 minutes in each one of them.

Finally, there’s a mistake that many mothers practice out of ignorance. We’re talking about making a chair with rails and filling it with pillows to put the baby inside it. We recommend that you discard it completely because this way, you put your child at risk.

Keep in mind that they don’t know how to sit and the cushions will allow them to lean to one side or the other, being completely crooked. Also, as they’re small, they can also sink and get trapped inside the pillows or slip through a crack and fall out of the chair. Help your child exercise, but don’t put them in danger.