Crawling on All Fours

Exercises for crawling on all fours for babies who belly crawl, either with ordinary cross-pattern belly crawling or with midline belly crawling. The program contains easy best-practice exercises that strengthen both sides of the body equally and support your baby on the way from belly crawling to crawling. The exercises can be used both as playful everyday inspiration and in cases of motor delay.

Online-program by Maria Schultz Appelt
Prioritized, simple exercises
Designed for busy families
Illustrated with pictures & videos
Instant & perpetual access
Secure payment with QuickPay

on Trustpilot

Available languages

349,00 DKK

(inclusive of all taxes, VAT and fees)

Smiling baby in a diaper on hands and knees in the crawling position. Exercises for crawling on all fours.

Program description

Crawling on all fours is when a baby moves forward with hands and knees on the floor. It is a key milestone, because crawling strengthens cross-coordination as well as the body’s strength and stability. Crawling therefore lays an important foundation for later motor skills. The vast majority of babies belly crawl before they start crawling on all fours, because crawling takes much more muscle strength than belly crawling.

This program contains best-practice home exercises to help your baby move on from belly crawling to stable crawling that alternates between the right and left sides of the body. The exercises combine strengthening of the relevant muscles around the shoulders, back, tummy, and hips with specific work on coordination. The program can be used both as general play inspiration and when your baby needs targeted motor support.

The exercises are described in detail and listed in order of priority, with the most important at the top. Each exercise comes with both pictures and videos, so you can see clearly how to do it.

Note: If your child is not belly crawling yet, choose this program instead: Belly Crawling

This program is one of two programs in the category Crawling on All Fours. Both can be used once your baby can belly crawl. Read about the differences here in the program overview. You will find answers to frequently asked questions below, and if you are still unsure which program is the right one for your child, you are very welcome to send an email to maria@develobaby.com.

Excellent classes & wonderful courses
Maria’s courses were wonderful and quickly helped our daughter gain the skills to go from army crawling to full hands and knees crawling quickly. She was very helpful about which course would be best and the exercises were easy enough to integrate in to our daily play time. Highly recommend!
Tayler, Trustpilot
Great program!
Hi! I recently purchased Maria’s crawling hands and knees program and we love it. We have been following it for a couple of weeks and I can see that my little one has gotten so much stronger since. The exercise are easy to follow and she provides clear information that makes the whole experience great! Highly recommended purchase!
Caterina, Trustpilot
crawling program
I bought the crawling programme as my child was slow to crawl. I have been following some of her ideas the past few days and I’ve already seen a difference. They are very easy to slot into what you’re doing already.
Katrina, Trustpilot
100% recommend
100% recommend! My little one (7 months) learned to sit AND started crawling in 3 weeks!
Anna, Trustpilot

Frequently asked questions about Crawling on All Fours

Belly crawling is the first milestone in which a baby moves forward on the floor. When belly crawling, the baby slides forward on the tummy: the tummy stays on the floor, and the baby pulls and pushes forward with arms and legs. Crawling is on all fours, with hands and knees on the floor, and takes much more muscle strength. That is why belly crawling usually comes before crawling.

Midline belly crawling is when a baby belly crawls forward with both arms at the same time and both legs at the same time. So it is belly crawling in the midline, without crossing movements, and it is often called inchworm crawling too, because the baby inches forward like a worm, straight down the middle.

Ordinary, strong cross-pattern belly crawling is when the left arm is placed on the floor and pulls the baby forward while the right leg pushes, and then the other way around. So the movement crosses over the body and activates the rotational muscles, which the baby later uses for crawling and to stabilize the body when standing and walking.

Midline belly crawling is a consequence of the back-arching pattern, where the baby finds it harder to activate crossing movements and therefore works a lot through the midline, for example when arching backward like a bow or doing straight sit-ups forward. That is why the exercises focus on activating the crossing movements and strengthening the rotational muscles, so the baby can use them for crawling, which is the next milestone.

A bear crawl is when a baby walks on all fours on hands and feet, bent forward, just like a bear. Here the aim is to help the baby down onto their knees, so they use them for crawling. You will find exercises for this in the program too.

No, some babies actually skip belly crawling and go straight to crawling. These are babies who have rolled and pivoted for a long time and have become so good at crossing movements that they do not need belly crawling as strength training to move on to crawling. When this happens, it is perfectly fine and nothing to worry about. Crawling is one of the big gross motor goals, and for most babies belly crawling is a prerequisite for getting there. Many parents ask whether they should go straight to practicing crawling if their baby is not belly crawling yet but can already get up on all fours. In that case, I still recommend practicing belly crawling, because it can take a long time from when a baby can get up on all fours until they can coordinate the crawling movement and move one arm and one leg at a time. For most babies, this takes a period of belly crawling first.

The program is for children who can belly crawl, either with cross-pattern belly crawling or with midline belly crawling. If your child is not belly crawling yet, I recommend starting with the Belly Crawling program, which contains general strengthening exercises for this important prerequisite for crawling.

Both programs contain exercises for the strength and coordination that crawling requires, and both can be used once your baby can belly crawl. Choose Crawling on All Fours if your baby belly crawls using both sides of the body, either with cross-pattern belly crawling or with midline belly crawling, and Asymmetrical Belly Crawling if your baby belly crawls asymmetrically, meaning mostly with one leg and the opposite arm, while the other leg and its opposite arm barely join in.

If the asymmetry is only slight, choose Asymmetrical Belly Crawling anyway. That program includes all the crawling exercises too. Once the asymmetry is gone, you do the ordinary crawling exercises until your child is crawling.

Generally, no. The programs overlap a lot, because both support natural motor development at this stage. The Asymmetrical Belly Crawling program contains the same exercises as Crawling on All Fours, plus important additions and variations that focus on the weaker side. So as a starting point, choose only one program in the category for the same child.

With targeted exercises that strengthen the muscles your baby uses to crawl and that also stimulate coordination between the two sides of the body. This applies not least to the muscles around the shoulders, back, tummy, and hips, which have to keep the body stable on all fours. In the program, I have listed the exercises in order of priority, with the most important at the top, and you can do them as part of all the little things you already do with your baby during the day.

Frequently asked questions about the exercise programs

You buy access to the program right here on the site. Once your payment has gone through, you’ll see an extra heading in the menu called “My Programs,” with links to all the programs you’ve bought access to. The whole thing takes less than 60 seconds.

No. You get online access to my programs here on the site, because the programs contain video clips, which of course can’t be played on paper or in a PDF. That’s also why there is no version you can download or have sent to you. You can actually print the programs you’ve bought from a computer, though, by pressing Ctrl+P on Windows or Command+P on macOS while you’re on the program page. The programs aren’t set up for printing, however, so they look much nicer and are easier to use directly on your phone, tablet or computer.

You have lifetime access. Once you’ve bought a program, you can always log in and use it again whenever you need it, without having to renew or pay for access.

No, that isn’t allowed. You buy access for yourself and the people who live in your household. If you buy as a grandparent, for example, you may of course share it with the person you bought it for. If you are the director of a daycare center, for example, and would like to buy one or more programs for your staff, just email me at maria@develobaby.com so we can work out an arrangement for multiple licenses. Read more in my Terms and Conditions.

As a rule, no. The exercise programs are digital products that you get access to right away, so the usual 14-day right of withdrawal doesn’t apply to them. If you bought the wrong program by mistake, or something else doesn’t fit your situation, just write to me at maria@develobaby.com. Then of course we’ll find a solution together. You can read more in my Terms and Conditions.

Unfortunately, I see this from time to time: the card issuer, that is, your bank, blocks the payment because it goes to Denmark, especially if you don’t usually shop in other countries or only do so rarely. In that case, there’s not much I can do. You can call your bank and ask them to authorize the payment manually. Or you can try one of the other payment methods at checkout, for example Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Yes, I’ve taken great care to explain every exercise in plain language so everyone can understand it. The exercises also come with pictures and videos where you can see them done with a real child.

As a rule, no. The exercises in my motor programs are ordinary strengthening exercises in the anatomically normal muscle pattern, and the exercises in my sleep and sensory programs are calm exercises that stimulate the senses. If your child gets tired or upset, take a break, and if you are unsure about your child’s health, talk to your healthcare provider or doctor.

No! In my exercise programs, I’ve put the exercises in order of priority. There are lots of exercises in each program, so in principle you could spend the whole day doing exercises if you enjoy it, but you can also choose to do, say, the top three or five, which are the most important ones, if you’re short on time. That way, the exercise programs are for everyone, no matter how much time and energy you have.

The exercises in my motor development programs are basically strength training, just like when you do exercises yourself to get stronger. They are designed so the child strengthens the muscles that matter at exactly the stage you bought the exercises for. That’s why they help make the child stronger on the way to the next milestone. Whether the child gets good-quality movement patterns at the next milestone with the exercises in the program naturally depends on how strong the muscles are to begin with, and on whether there are special circumstances that call for a more individually tailored approach. These could be, for example, congenital disabilities or neurological injuries. But helping your child toward a stronger body is never wasted effort.

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