Veronika is six months old! This is such an exciting age for babies, with so much that happens right around now: rolling if your baby hasn’t already; sitting up unaided; and making the first moves toward crawling.

We do lots of tummy time with Veronika, which is one way to encourage crawling. Right now she pushes with her legs but arches her arms back like a swimmer doing the butterfly and screams when she can’t reach something. She’ll figure it out eventually!

Another way to encourage crawling, other than tummy time, is to have your baby sit and lean forward. This not only builds the abdominal muscles for sitting, but can actually turn into a crawl, if a reach forward turns into a belly flop.

Today, I sat Veronika up with a supportive pillow, and placed a few tantalizing toys just out of reach.

We soon found that this worked best with her foam blocks.

She really wanted to reach them.

As she reached, I gave lots of encouragement. Resist the urge to move the blocks or toys closer, and let your baby truly stretch.

One time she did flop forward onto her belly and looked quite surprised, but then happily was at her target. The other times, she was simply stretching as far forward as possible, so happy and so determined.

I can say with 100 percent certainty that this game was the difference between a day where she was still sitting with a wobble, and the next day where she suddenly had the muscle control to stay steady. Will it lead to crawling next? I’ll report back once we have a crawler!