It's Tummy Time

Just as Baby Mozart was, at one time, all the rage now "tummy time" is the latest infant-stimulation craze to take hold among new parents.

The motivation among moms and dads is that they don't want their kid to be the last one on the block to crawl!

This belly fad seems to be a fallout of a shift in child rearing that began in the 1990s, when experts began encouraging parents to put babies on their backs to avoid Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. But what happened was, babies who spend time on their backs were developmentally delayed and had flat heads!

According to the Center for SIDS in Hackensack, N.J., there is no danger to this, though they emphasize this is strictly for awake playtime and that the number SID related deaths has declined due to babies being put to sleep on their backs.

Tummy time seems to be cropping-up everywhere from living rooms to mother-baby exercise classes to toy companies, who are marketing tummy toys.

The question most parents want to know is ...

Is this just another keeping-up-with-the-joneses trend or is there real benefit in putting babies on their bellies?

Find out on Monday when The Early Show will talk to Dr. Lyuba Konopasek. She is a practicing pediatrician, an associate professor of pediatrics, at NY Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, and a mother.