Tummy time is bummy time

Cole HATES Tummy Time. The kid typically calms with a bounce or a bink, but not after an instant on his belly. Oh how he cries. He cries like I asked his first girlfriend to the prom.

Tummy Time is a daily activity for babies so they can develop muscles in their neck, arms and shoulders. Like its name, parents lay children face down on a blanket or with their heads and arms propped up on a pillow. Tummy Time reduces the risk of SIDS, and also helps reduce the chance of babies developing flat spots on their heads which can deform the child's skull.

We're supposed to do Tummy Time for 15 minutes a day, but Cole howls after two.

You = worst mom in the world, he seems to say between sobs and sniffles.

So we do it again. Because we MUST.

Experts recommend it. And I won't take chances.

Especially after I read this from Lisa Belkin of The New York Times' Motherlode blog.

Belkin writes of a study saying Tummy Time helps babies develop motor skills and teaches them to walk sooner. The study links age-when-infant-walks to IQ points and physical fitness.

The study also says children who "passed prewalking motor development marks" earlier had higher IQ scores by age 8 and by their 30s, those children had attained a higher level of education.

Now, it's obvious. Thirty-year-olds were raised before the "Back to Sleep" and "Tummy Time" campaigns. Babies of that generation slept on their stomach. To suggest Tummy Time impacted their development seems flawed. I wonder if the correlation between walking age and academic achievement is simply related to the child's natural aptitude rather than time spent on the back, front, upside down or even inside out.

Because even I hate Tummy Time.

I hate that we have to do it at Cole's best times of day, the times when he smiles and coos and practically wraps his arms around my neck, declaring me the Most Motherly Matriarch of all things Maternal. Which of course, followed by his you're-the-worst-mommy sentiments, makes Tummy Time even more hurtful. For me.

Since babies typically despise time on the tummy, professionals tell parents to try it when babies are their happiest in hopes the wee child won't upset so quickly. Thanks a lot, funhaters.

I don't think time of day matters with Cole, though. Happy or sad before, he is always the latter after Tummy Time.

But like I said, I won't take chances. So despite Cole's ill-will toward bouts on the belly, we'll continue to try. Although he cries and I cry and it ruins our entire morning, Tummy Time can't hurt... right?