Tarzan Crawling and Bottom Scooting

Online Physical Therapy exercise program to strengthen your baby’s body to master walking despite Tarzan Crawling or Bottom Scooting.

  • Prioritized, simple exercises
  • Designed for busy families
  • Illustrated with pictures & videos
  • Instant & perpetual access
  • Secure payment with QuickPay
  • English
  • Dansk
  • Deutsch

Available languages

Original price was: 299,00 DKK.Current price is: 269,10 DKK.

(inclusive of all taxes, VAT and fees)

Program description

Developed by Danish pediatric physical therapist Maria Schultz Appelt consists of evidence-based, playful exercises that strengthen your baby’s body and coordination skills for stable and solid walking in spite of Tarzan Crawling or Bottom Scooting.

Each exercise in the program is described in detail and illustrated with pictures and videos. When content is updated – for example, when new research is published – you will see the latest update every time you log in. This way, you always have access to the most up-to-date version.

If you have any questions about the program or are unsure about anything, please send me a message (perhaps including a short video of your baby) via my Instagram @develobaby or email at maria@develobaby.com.

Note: If your baby is not Tarzan Crawling or Bottom Scooting, but is crawling normally on all fours, then select the Walking program instead.

What is Tarzan Crawling?

Tarzan crawling is when your baby crawls like Tarzan or Mogli from the Disney classic – on one knee and one foot instead of on both knees. Both hands are usually used, but in most cases not alternately, but simultaneously.

Tarzan crawling typically develops after a Preferred Side. If left untreated, this early stage of asymmetrical motor development will continue through all milestones. Typically, a preferred side develops into one-sided belly crawling, which then develops into Tarzan crawling.

Tarzan crawling can affect the quality of walking, because stable and solid walking requires symmetrical muscle strength on both sides of the body. Incidentally, it is always advantageous to be equally strong on both sides of the body – both for effective muscle work and for neurological development of both hemispheres of the brain.

Tarzan Crawling and Bottom Scooting FAQ What is Tarzan Crawling

What is Bottom Scooting?

Bottom scooting means that the baby sits upright on their bottom with legs in front of the body on the floor and then pulls themselves forward by stretching and bending the legs, either straight ahead or slightly sideways. Sometimes the hands/arms are used for this type of movement, and sometimes only the legs. A common variation of bottom scooting is bottom hopping, in which the baby starts out in the same position but then supports the upper body through their arms at the ankles and then moves forward in a hopping motion (see video).

Sideways bottom scooting can develop as an alternative to Tarzan crawling after a preferred side, while babies who scoot straight ahead often have a history of over-arching their back, i.e., they have strong abdominal and back muscles, while the lateral rotation muscles are not strong enough to stabilize the body for the alternating left/right movements involved in crawling on all fours.

Bottom scooting can also cause problems in learning to walk because the baby uses both sides of the body at the same time, whereas walking requires alternating use of the left and right sides of the body. These babies compensate for the lack of stability when walking by sticking their tummies out. Although it looks cute, it is a motor compensation.

Tarzan Crawling and Bottom Scooting FAQ What is Bottom Scooting

Frequently asked questions to Tarzan Crawling and Bottom Scooting

Because I see this a lot in the clinic, I have combined these two crawling styles into one exercise program. The exercises you need to combine for your baby are clearly marked in the program.

To explain this, we need to take a step back and think about walking. For stable and solid walking, we humans need two physical coordination skills that are automatically trained through crawling on all fours, but are insufficiently or not at all trained through Tarzan Crawling or Bottom Scooting. The first requirement is symmetrical muscle strength on both sides of the body. When a baby crawls like Tarzan on one knee and one foot, the baby uses both legs and the hip and gluteal muscles asymmetrically, i.e., the two sides of the body are at different strengths as the baby attempts to transitions to walking. In bottom scooting, the baby uses both sides of the body equally well, but the baby moves both sides of the body at the same time, i.e., it does not train upper body rotation or alternating use of legs and arms, as is necessary for walking. As a result, babies who Tarzan Crawl or Bottom Scoot are often seen to have problems transitioning to walking.

Yes, this program contains tips for correcting the crawling style, but mainly exercises to help the transition to walking. It is NOT recommended to purchase the Walking program in addition to this program as both programs have the same goal, which is to learn to walk.

Tarzan crawling typically develops after a preferred side. If left untreated, the asymmetry of the preferred side can be seen all subsequent milestones. In the belly crawling stage, it is seen as one-sided belly crawling, and in the all-fours crawl stage, it is seen as Tarzan Crawling or sideways Bottom Scooting.

Babies who bottom scoot often have an undiscovered history of over-arching their back meaning they have strong abdominal and back muscles, but the lateral rotation muscles are not strong enough to stabilize the body for the alternating left/right movements of crawling on all fours.

Finally, some babies do not crawl on all fours because they do not have enough strength in their arms or because their muscles are less toned in general (soft or hypermobile babies).

No! The exercises are normal, anatomically correct strengthening exercises for the relevant muscle groups. The worst thing that can happen is that you are supporting your baby’s motor development. 😉

I am aware that the exercises add to the stress of everyday family life. That’s why I’ve prioritized the exercises so that the five most important ones are at the top of the program and you can limit yourself to those if you’re short on time. You can do many of the exercises as part of all the little things you do in your everyday life anyway, and that’s why you can usually get your baby to walk without spending a lot of extra time on it. Of course, this is individual and depends a lot on your baby’s starting point.

Frequently asked questions to exercise programs

After completing the purchase process successfully, you can access your exercise program here on the develobaby.com. During payment, enter your email address and password. After successful payment, you will see an additional heading in the menu called “My Programs”, including links to all the exercise programs you have purchased access to. You could be reading your first program in under 60 seconds from purchasing. When you come back to DeveloBaby.com after a few days, the system will have logged you out automatically. Then simply log in again with your email address as your username and the password you chose during the checkout process.

My exercise programs are accessible online here on DeveloBaby.com. As the programs contain video clips that couldn’t be played in PDF or other types of print, there is no downloadable or hard copy version. That said, using a PC/Mac you can in fact print the exercise programs you have purchased by pressing Ctrl+P on Windows and Command+P on MacOS when you are on the exercise program page. However, the programs are not specifically set up for this purpose, so it’s much nicer and more user-friendly to view it directly on your mobile, tablet or computer.

You have perpetual access. However, I am obliged to adhere to certain privacy data regulations (such as GDPR), which state that I cannot store customer data longer than necessary. Therefore, the system limits your access to one year at a time. When a year is about to expire, the system will automatically send you an email so you can easily extend your access if you want to keep it.

No, this would be against the terms & conditions. You purchase access for yourself and the people living in your household. If you, however, buy an exercise program as a grandparent, you can of course share the access with the person you bought it for. In contrast, if you are a manager in an institution and want to procure access to one or more exercise programs for your employees, please write to me so we can work out an agreement on multiple licenses. For contact details and more, please see my Terms and Conditions.

Current legislation states that the usual 14-day right of withdrawal does not apply to digital products. The reason for this is that it is virtually impossible to argue that you haven’t used digital products once you’ve logged in. Therefore, I do not generally offer refunds. Please read more about my return policy under Terms and Conditions.

Yes, I’ve gone to great lengths to explain each exercise in layman’s terms so that everyone can follow. There are also pictures and videos to accompany the exercises, where I perform the exercises on a real baby.

No, certainly not. In my exercise programs, I have put the exercises in prioritized order. There are a lot of exercises in each program, so in principle you can spend your whole day doing exercises if you find it enjoyable, but you can also choose to do the top three or top five, and therefore the most important ones. This makes the exercise programs suitable for everyone, no matter how much time and energy you have to spare.

The exercises are basically just strength training, just like when you go to the gym. They are designed to strengthen your child muscles wrt the exercise programs’ purpose, e.g. addressing back arching. Therefore, exercises will always make your child stronger. Whether your child achieves each milestone with good quality using the exercises depends, of course, on the starting conditions and whether there are any special conditions that would require a individually tailored approach. But no matter what, helping your child build a stronger body will never be in vain. For the vast majority, standardized exercises, as presented in my exercise programs, will help the child move on to the next milestone well and strongly.

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Note: when purchasing two or more programs, a 10% discount is automatically applied.

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Disclaimer

All content on DeveloBaby.com is based on recognized professional standards in Denmark, and you can expect them to be in line with the advice you receive in the public health system. If you find that your child has pronounced sleep or motor challenges, or that there is a lack of effect from the general exercises, I recommend that you make an appointment with me, either in person or online, so that I can customize the program for your child. If your child is unwell, please always contact your health care provider or physician. Read full disclaimer…