Baby you’re amazing! June O'Sullivan on the importance of best practice with babies and toddlers

Babies are amazing. Their brains are fizzing with synaptic connections and flooded with neurotransmitters that are inducing learning and plasticity. This understanding frames the baby approach at LEYF, indeed we call it Baby You are Fantastic!  

It also makes us realise why we need to share good baby practice widely. Right now, we are in the middle of a big political debate about the importance of early years experiences and it’s crucial that parents and the wider public understand what ‘good quality’ looks like for a baby and a toddler in a childcare setting. The support and wellbeing of babies is strongly linked to better outcomes later in life, including educational achievement, progress at work and physical and mental health.

Babies are often overlooked in early years policy, but nowadays we are caring for babies who have been born in Covid so we really must pay attention to what is good for their development. For example, last year LEYF baby staff noticed that the babies and their parents were much more nervous about transitions. The staff developed an action research project, which can be summarised as ‘Look, Think and Act’. They sought much more information about home routine and replicated it more explicitly within the nursery environment.

The importance of creating family books with photos of family members and the home was highlighted and became even more important to ease the move into nursery, especially those experiencing the development stage of separation anxiety.

What matters to babies is relationships. Suzanne Zeedyk says the way we relate to babies shapes their brains. They thrive in a place where the staff love them and where they feel safe and secure. The importance of ratios to babies is hugely important. 

Our mantra, two hips and a lap is a metaphor for this! This does not mean that babies need to be permanently on anyone’s hip but to have well trained, loving staff who know when to pick the child up and comfort him/her and put them down to explore is not to be underestimated. When staff are insecure about how babies learn and develop or their ability to recognise when a baby needs a cuddle (and allowing them to be free to explore and play) can be confused and the balance of nurturing independence impacted.

Training staff

When we get the relationships with babies and toddlers right, they thrive and so do their parents, because often it is the adult who is the more anxious. This is why the key person role is so important. Training staff to take on this role is time well spent. Building that home learning bridge is not to be underestimated and requires staff to understand how children develop and learn and how to turn that knowledge into what we call at LEYF, a ‘pedagogical conversation’.

This means being able to translate what is happening in the child’s development into a summary that is understood by the parent and then translated into ways of encouraging the child to deepen and strengthen this learning.

Explaining a child’s schema is a great example of this and so many parents are amazed to learn their toddler is not deliberately hiding everything under the sofa but is exploring through a schematic thinking pattern. This is all the easier now that parents are welcomed back into the settings and no longer standing on the doorstep.

Great communicators
Babies are also great communicators, but their communication development depends on secure attachments with staff. Conversations with babies are hugely important as well as more formal planned activities. For example, singing and signing groups using Makaton builds the child’s ability to watch and learn and follow very simple instructions. It reminds staff of the importance of eye contact and a quiet, calm environment.

Some staff will lower the lighting and ensure the children are in a cosy quiet area so they feel cocooned.  Routine matters to babies and toddlers (both indoors and outside) so embed the singing circles into the routine.  What’s in the Box, Sparkle time are all lovely opportunities for key persons to spend quality, calm and focused time developing communication skills.

Finally, the successful baby and toddler teacher is one who is well trained and supported by a manager who understands the importance of providing high quality teaching for babies and toddlers. Too often baby rooms are staffed by inexperienced staff. This is not a good idea. Baby staff need to be research informed, supported and equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to work with the youngest children.

The power of knowing how to create strong attachments that build independence, the skills of observation, applying the theories of attachment and recognising and supporting the different stages of communicating are the bedrock of good practice. Baby staff need to be given a space to build their own community of practice where they can reflect, debate and problem solve and in doing so deepen their learning and understanding of what is best for our babies and toddlers.