Does this story sound familiar? You go see your favourite physiotherapist who gives you a bunch of great, well-intentioned exercises perfectly targeted for you and your body. By the time you get home, life hits - the laundry needs attention, someone needs to make dinner and someone is crying. How are you supposed to get it all done?!
For caregivers of littles, this often presents a huge challenge - how do you get your exercises in while still managing everything you have going on at home?
When it comes to vestibular exercises, I have come up with a great list that you can try at home. As always, check in with your vestibular therapist to make sure these exercises are appropriate for you.
Devon’s Top Ten Exercises for Vestibular Stimulation With Babies & Toddlers
1. Create an obstacle course with tape
Grab some masking or painter’s tape and start taping lines on the ground. Tape a long, straight piece down and walk heel to toe on it; tape a zig-zag on the ground to walk along; tape some shapes to jump into - you are only limited by your creativity!
Bonus points if you use different colours of tape and assign different rules to different tape colours. For instance, move slowly on the yellow tape, fast on the green tape and backwards on the blue tape.
2. Play Floor is Lava
Grab all the pillows you can find and scatter them around the room. Go from one pillow to the next, making up rules as you go. Let your little one pick a pillow to “sink into the lava” or decide that all the blue pillows sunk.
3. Peak-A-Boo with movement
For the super-littles, a game of peak-a-boo is a great place to get some vestibular input. When you close or cover your eyes, move either forward/backward or up/down - that movement with eyes closed will give your vestibular system a nice kick. Remember to do this one in sitting if you’re quite off-balance with eyes closed in standing!
4. Ring Around the Exersaucer
If you have a little sitting in an exersaucer, jolly jumper or even on a blanket on the ground, walk around them in some kind of silly walk while making eye contact and having your head turned toward them. You could be a penguin, a hopping bunny, a gorilla - whatever you’d like! The bigger and more exaggerated the movement, the better!
5. The Hokey-Pokey
If you want to get your body moving, do the Hokey Pokey! You can move as much as you want and even close your eyes for parts of it to give you a real challenge. Putting your head in? Drop that head as far down as you can!
6. Toy handoff
A common vestibular exercise I prescribe is looking at something in your hand while moving your head. This is easy to do here - when you grab a toy to hand your kid, look at the toy as you turn and move towards your kid without allowing your eyes to come off of the toy.
7. Yoga
You may be thinking, how am I supposed to do yoga with little kids around? My kids and I started down Cosmic Kids Yoga together during the pandemic and they loved it. Give it a try! It even became a regular thing in our home before lunch.
8. Silly walks
Create your own silly walks with your littles! High kicks, wobbly knees, spins… take turns creating a silly walk and having everyone else copy it. If you have one walking little and one non-walking little, holding the baby while doing your silly walk gets your bonus points!
9. Tickle fights
Honestly, the vestibular system and spontaneous movement are made for each other. Tickle fights are such a great way to engage in unpredictable movement patterns and react to their movements. Add some rolling around and you’ve got the whole package!
10. Patty Cake
When playing patty cake, keep your eyes switching back and forth between your hands - this gives your vestibular system some great stimulation.
Remember - make sure you’re safe to do any and all of these exercises, especially ones in which you are closing your eyes and moving through space. The last thing you need is a fall! If in doubt, check in with a vestibular therapist about which exercises are appropriate for you.
If you need the help of a vestibular therapist, call us at (778) 630-8800, book online or email us.
