5 months & 3 weeks and not rolling

Hello everyone,

My baby girl is 5 months and 3 weeks, she is almost hitting 6 months. The problem? She is not rolling. She doesn't bother to try. Whenever I give her tummy time she is able to lift her head high with the support of her arms and can last up to 18 mins on her tummy. She is an excellent sitter. She is almost able to sit by herself without assist. I thinking, within a week or two she will be sitting without me making sure she doesn't fall over. Should I be concerned about this? My health nurse suggested I should wait until the December to see if she does end up rolling. I always watch her during tummy time and sometimes notice her trying to get on her knees, as an attempt to crawl. Well, she does sometimes show signs of trying to do a crawling position. Mothers can you please share your child/rens experiences.

Regards,

Girl22

My DD is only a week or two younger than yours and only rolls very occasionally at the moment, she gets from her back onto her side easily but can't work out how to get to her tummy, from tummy to back isn't much better. Have you tried rolling her over from her tummy to show her she can do it? Then rolling her half way and get her to do the rest? 18 mins is a long time on her tummy so she must be strong!

My DD cannot sit on her own yet, she does lots of sit ups and can sit assisted but will fall on her face if I let her go, opps... :redface:

I'd say your DD is on track don't worry, most other babies in my mothers group arn't rolling yet either....

My DS didn't roll until 2 days before he crawled which was around 7 or 8 months. And of course once he was crawling properly, he didn't end up needing to roll hehe. He then was walking on his own at 11 months.

Looking back, it was fantastic that I could sit him on the floor and he wouldn't go anywhere! LOL. DD on the other hand rolled everywhere, and it was a big pain!

Try not to worry. They do things in their own time :)

DD2 really only started rolling quite well after 6 months. She showed a few signs of doing it, but did not seem to be in a hurry. Now she is rolling really well and getting close to a proper crawl. Whereas she still needs a little bit of propping up with sitting and she is almost 7 months. My first started off at looking to be slow at rolling, but by this age was pulling to standing, rolling everywhere, sitting very well, almost furniture cruising, but never really did a proper crawl, just her own version for a short while. They are all so different, I remember being panicked by a MCHN and ordered to help my first with rolling (which she hated). There was no panic as all.

Thank you so much ladies for your replies. I have been waiting impatiently since I posted this thread.

Kristin,

If I lend her a helping hand, by turning her onto her side, she can roll from her tummy to back and vice-vera. She is very strong. I timed her last week, she managed to stay 18 mins on her tummy without rolling. When she was almost 4 months, she was doing 10 mins on her tummy. At 2-3 months, she hated tummy time.

Liz,

I have seen her trying to get on her knees, doing the crawling motions. I want her to roll now. I want her to roll so badly, so she can roll herself over to whatever side when she gets bored or whatever. I am just going to wait.

My DS was slow to roll, and only ever rolled in one direction, but was early to sit unsupported, to crawl, and to stand. He was walking at 11 months. He's just about to turn one and still only rolls in one direction, unless he has absolutely no other choice. And I could count the number of times I've seen him roll from front to back on one hand (he has this very odd little motion for getting onto his back, but it's not actually rolling, it's kind of controlled falling).

It's likely that if your DD is showing other signs of age appropriate development that she just doesn't see any need to roll.

Thanks for the reassurance Astrid. Did you help her to roll over or did she do it on her own?

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It's likely that if your DD is showing other signs of age appropriate development that she just doesn't see any need to roll.

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Funny you said this Suse because she can use her hands to grab toys while she is on her back, if its near or screams for me to get it for her if she throws it too far. Other time I normally place toys near on during tummy time.

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Thanks for the reassurance Astrid. Did you help her to roll over or did she do it on her own?

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No direct help, just floor time with toys scattered about out of reach. She hated it if I tried to help her roll. One day I had my back turned and when I looked back she was gone :o When she decided to roll she just kept on going and has not stopped moving ever since!

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No direct help, just floor time with toys scattered about out of reach. She hated it if I tried to help her roll. One day I had my back turned and when I looked back she was gone :o When she decided to roll she just kept on going and has not stopped moving ever since!

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Cute.

First time mothers are always concerned about something. My other concern is her weight. She is 7.8kg. When she turned 4 months she was 7.1kg. Obviously, she hasn't gained much. Not even a kilo. Last week, I started feeding her rice cereals. It has no taste. I try to feed it to her once or twice a day. no luck. It comes flying out. Maybe I should have bought her the custard flavoured one. I plan on feeding her homemade food the day she hits 6 months. Any suggestions ladies in terms of baby weight?

If she's happy & alert and giving you those wet & soiled nappies.. I wouldn't worry too much.

If she's pushing the cereal straight back out, she may not be ready for solids just yet. There's some great threads on the boards here about baby-led solids, and how to know when bub is ready for solids, which you could get some info from. If you're concerned about weight, I'd up the milk feeds, as the food we usually start them on (fruits & veg) don't have many calories anyway.. so not really conducive to gaining weight :)

weight gain seems ok.

my ds was born at 3995 grams went down to 3510 grams and at 4 months was 5690 grams!!!

ds rolls on to side sometimes never fully over.

relax and enjoy and before you know it she will be rolling all over the place.

Liz,

I think she is. She shows signs of it. Can you please give me those links? I would appreciate it greatly.

Thanks for your reply Feeb.

Gosh, there's a few of them I think. Perhaps do a search in the forum for baby-led solids?

Here's the section about feeding & solids tho: https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...eeding-solids/

and here's a BellyBelly article as well: https://www.bellybelly.com.au/baby/s...-my-baby-ready

Hope that helps!

She sounds like she is doing other things rather than rolling. DD would roll tummy to back from an early age but didn't roll from back to tummy until after she had been crawling for a while. Apparently I didn't roll at all until after I crawled so I wouldn't be too concerned about the rolling if she is sitting and starting to look like crawling. Some children skip stages eg. some kids never crawl, they just get up and walk.

Her weight sounds fine. Sometimes babies will slow down in weight gain if they are growing length wise. Check her length and if she has grown longer that month then she has probably been putting energy into getting taller rather than heavier. She has put on some weight and not lost any so it doesn't sound like cause to worry. I know DD grew 3cm one month and only gained about 300gm.

DD2 never rolled until she hit 8 months old....and then at 9 months crawled...like yourself i was worried about her not rolling but she wanted to do it when she was ready!

there is physio you can do to help roll her .. my friend had to do them but he hated it so much she gave up and let him do his thing ... he is perfect now .. and the weight seems fine

if she seems like she wants to crawl ,encourage her to .. DS rolled early everywhere .. it was the only way he got around..and cralwed at nearly 6 months .. each bub is different and if she is holding her head up at tummy time and is happy and content and weeing and pooping and smiling and interacting , i wouldnt worry at all ..

another thing also is girls tend to gain motor skills a tad later than boys ..so she may just be better is other areas xx

Charmalea,

I have spoke to my health nurse. She recommended for DD to see a physio. I called her on Thursday for her to arrange an appointment. But she hasn't called me back. :rolleyes: Typical of her. Always expecting me to call her back. :rolleyes: After reading all the replies I am a little less worried. I do understand babies developmental milestones are not the same. However would never much prefer her to be rolling.

Girl22, if it makes you feel any better, my son is maybe a week younger than your child, and he is NOT interested in rolling at all. He also doesn't sit without my support, and he only just discovered his feet. He dislikes tummy time and can only be there for 5 mins MAX on a good day. So your bubs is going great compared to mine! :D

He was a bit late to get the whole reaching/grabbing thing too, so I think he is just taking his own sweet time to discover life. Sometimes I freak out about it, but mostly I just listen to my mummy's instict, which tells me he is just fine. I am sure yours is perfectly fine as well. (although I would be interested to hear what the physio suggests and how it goes)

At least we don't need to baby-proof the house yet!!

Amber-J,

I doubt my health nurse will get back to me. I might as well call the physio myself. I will tell you what he or she says.

Girl22, my DS is not rolling yet either and he's 6 and a half months. Paed is not too worried so I'm not as well. We are however seeing a physio tomorrow which was booked about a month ago by the CHN when I was worried that DS was not rolling. I figured keeping the appointment was good as it doesn't hurt to get things checked.

But I feel ok he's not rolling yet. From the sounds of things, it's alot easier while they aren't moving around :)

With the weight, it sounds fine. My DS is 6.7kg...

Brock has been rolling really well for quite a while now & he's just 5 months.

I believe the reason he got so good at rolling early was that he had loads of tummy time from really early on as he had a flat spot on his head & we had to keep him off it.

I feed him, sit him in his rocker to make sure his milk goes down then I place him on the floor on towels. He's generally on the floor til he's ready for a nap. He often goes to sleep there. I place toys all around him just out of reach. At first it got him rolling and now it gets him moving around to grab them.

The other babies at mums group are not rolling as well and some of them are a month older. None of those bubs have had as much time on their tummies as he has & that's why I think he's learnt it early.