Are these exercises safe?

The safety disclaimer applies to every exercise in Baby Acrobatics, and you agree to it the first time you open the guide. The exercises are safe when done the way they're taught. That "as designed" part is the whole answer, so it's worth understanding rather than taking on trust.

What you're agreeing to

Before the exercises start, the guide opens with a safety page (titled "Our Heart-to-Heart on Your Baby's Safety"). By reading it and moving past it, you confirm three things: you've read the safety rules, you'll make your baby's safety your top priority, and you accept the Terms & Conditions you already agreed to at purchase.

In plain terms: this is educational content, not medical advice, and you stay the one judging what's right for your baby in the moment. There's no separate form to sign. The rules below are the actual content of that page.

The core principle: your baby grips and lifts. You never pull.

When your baby actively grips your thumb or a bar and lifts themselves, the load moves through their grip, shoulder girdle, and core, exactly the muscles and joints they're already developing. It's the same load they put on themselves reaching for a toy or pulling up on furniture. Babies are built for it.

What's genuinely unsafe is the opposite: an adult pulling or yanking a baby's arm. That can cause "nursemaid's elbow" (radial head subluxation), which is a real injury. Adult-pulled and baby-initiated supported hanging look similar in a short clip but they are different movements with different loads.

The rules we teach

1. Baby initiates and grips. Offer your thumb or the bar, let your baby grab, and let them bear their own weight. You never pull or dangle them by the arms.
2. Support at the hips and wrists so you can catch instantly if their grip slips.
3. Your baby decides how long. When they let go, you're done. No counting, no "one more."
4. Stop if your baby resists or seems in pain. A bit of fussing during a new exercise is normal. Hard crying, pulling away, or wincing is a signal to stop and try again another day.

You can watch a video demo of each exercise inside the app before you try it, which makes the difference between "pull" and "let them grip" obvious.

⚠️ When the answer is "talk to your clinician first"

Some situations call for professional sign-off before you start hanging, inversions, or weight-bearing exercises:

• Your baby was born prematurely.
• Your baby has a diagnosed condition affecting joints, posture, or tone (torticollis, hip dysplasia, hypotonia, hypertonia, a brace, a cast).
• Your baby is recovering from an injury or illness.

In those cases, read using Baby Acrobatics if your baby has a diagnosed condition first, and check with your pediatrician or pediatric PT.

"Someone in the comments said this is dangerous"

This comes up under hanging videos especially. It's almost always reacting to the pulling pattern, not the actual exercise. A clip out of context looks alarming if you haven't seen the same movement done correctly, and most people post the warning in good faith.

The fastest way to calibrate your own read: watch the demo in the app a few times, try the exercise gently with full hip support, and watch what your baby actually does. Your own observation beats any comment thread.

A worry about one specific exercise or your specific baby

The principle above covers the general case. For a worry about one particular exercise, or whether something fits your particular baby, your pediatric clinician is the right person to ask. They can see your baby and we can't.