The question to start with is – when do babies start learning? ‘We are operating on the assumption that young children require primarily caretaking and older children need education,’ US child development expert Dan Wuori told the National Literacy Trust conference in March. ‘We want children to come to kindergarten age five ready to learn, as if learning doesn't take place before. We know better than we ever have that that is not the case: learning begins in the womb.’
Scientists have found that foetuses can pick up on smells, tastes and even languages if they are repeated often enough. One study found babies in France aged just a few days old appeared to have been ‘listening’ in the womb, with newborns showing more brain activity hearing stories in their mothers’ native French over other languages.
Yet despite the growing evidence about the capabilities of babies’ brains, the baby room has traditionally conjured the image of bored, inexperienced practitioners doing the conveyor belt work of nappy-changing and feeding, away from where the ‘real learning’ takes place.
Now, though, the sector is grappling with a major policy shift, with the free entitlement extending to nine-month-olds from September, and awarding organisations responding with new baby-focused qualifications. A new Nuffield Foundation-funded Baby Room research project is also working to define what baby room quality looks like in the UK and hearing from practitioners who say they want more support and training. There is also an increased effort to understand babies’ ‘voice’ (see Training courses). Could the tide now be turning on the sector's baby ‘image problem’?
WHAT DO BABIES NEED?
Julia Manning Morton, who has just completed a PhD on physical interactions with birth to three-year-olds, says that for babies, education is inextricably intertwined with care. ‘Most of the learning comes from the care event – nappy-changing, feeding, going to sleep. We have the idea that the important part of the day is finger painting, but these care events are so important, they should be the primary focus of the provision.’
She emphasises the importance of responsive relationships for learning to take place.
‘Close relationships are what babies need to develop their sense of self. Practitioners need to be able to empathise with a child, but not let their own emotions take over,’ she says. ‘We help children to regulate themselves by co-regulating – and for this you have to be able to regulate yourself.’
For this reason, care events such as nappy-changing should be done by the key person the majority of time, with a buddy system in place so that a secondary key person can fill in as needed.
Manning Morton adds that a review she did of 147 CPD courses found only seven focused on birth to threes, with most of the focus on statutory elements such as first-aid and the EYFS and only one focused on aspects of care.
She says, ‘This training landscape also overlooks the specialisation required of infant-toddler educators and marginalises their professional voice and expertise. If there is an image problem with working with babies, I'm going to lay the blame for that on the training. There is very little focus on working with birth to threes.’
For Manning Morton, too much training is ‘short, sharp and online’, not giving practitioners the opportunities to ‘tune into’ babies. She recommends Pikler UK's respectful care approach and is developing a ‘train the trainers’ course (see box, below)
QUALITY TRAINING
International research backs up the view on the importance of close relationships with care-givers. Mona Sakr and Sara Bonetti recently co-authored Quality in the Baby Room: Actionable Findings from a Global Evidence Review, which found a calm, predictable environment that support babies’ sensory and emotional regulation, and sensitive handling of transitions and care routines, are important indicators of quality. Staff also need a shared vision of what quality is; valuing emotional labour, responsiveness and respectful care-giving.
The review found a strong connection between quality and ratios, and group sizes of six to eight. Bonetti adds that while England's 1:3 adult:child ratio is generally considered the minimum acceptable standard, group size in England is not regulated beyond how much physical space is required.
She adds that baby-specific CPD is ‘vital’.
‘Specific training in infant development, communication and care practices is fundamental, and general early years qualifications, such as a Level 3, often don't go deep enough into the nuances of infant care.’
Sakr believes that while ‘there's nothing definitive – as far as I know that says it always needs to be the same person changing a baby's nappy – certainly there is robust evidence to suggest that babies flourish when they enjoy close, secure relationships with adults they not only know but love’.
While the EYFS states that half of practitioners should have some baby-specific training, this is not standardised, something NCFE's Janet King says would be beneficial. She says that while the Level 3 apprenticeship standard coupled with the DfE early years educator criteria have resulted in quality Level 3 qualifications which provide knowledge of the holistic development of children from birth to seven, ‘hands-on experiences with babies is often limited’, with it being a challenge for students ‘to participate in sustained training with babies and children under two years of age’. She adds that it was also a challenge to find ‘the opportunity to engage with parents/carers and the wider family’.
Responsive care is important for working with under-twos
PHOTOS ADOBESTOCK AND THE EARLY YEARS NURSERYThe new NCFE Level 3 award, a four-month course aimed at practitioners working with children under two, aims to fill this gap. It includes knowledge of schemas, being able to give examples of responsive care, including identifying examples of verbal and non-verbal cues, advocating for babies, attachment, meeting physical care requirements, as well as statutory safeguarding and welfare.
CHANGING ATTITUDES
Bonetti says that while staffing issues mean many early years professionals end up becoming baby room educators by accident, now, ‘educators are more aware of the unique needs and challenges of working with the youngest children, and there seems to be a slow but noticeable cultural shift towards recognising the complexity and importance of this work’.
Bonetti feels the growing research evidence is helping to elevate the status of baby room practice.
‘There is increased attention to infant wellbeing, attachment theory and early development – thanks to the attention paid to brain development science and all the efforts to ‘translate’ scientific material into layman language’, she says.
The Baby Room project, run by Sakr and Bonetti, aims to hear from 200 baby room practitioners as part of its plan to produce a ‘workable vision’ for the baby room workforce, and is running conferences across the UK this year. A survey of recent attendees found 34 per cent had received baby-room-specific training in the past year, with a strong desire among practitioners for more recognition of the emotional complexity of baby room work, as well as a frustration with the lack of specific training and professional development.
training courses and resources
- NCFE CACHE has produced a Level 3 award in Working with Babies and Young Children Under 2 Years.
- Mona Sakr's and Sara Bonetti's Nuffield-funded Baby Room project is offering six conferences in 2025, with upcoming conferences in Manchester, Falmouth and Bristol in June and July: https://tinyurl.com/3zvjnwsw.
- Pikler UK runs five day courses: https://pikler.co.uk/pikler-training.
- Froebel Trust is planning some short courses on birth to threes, not yet online: check www.froebel.org.uk/training-and-resources.
- Julia Manning Morton is developing a ‘training the trainers’ course for educators with substantial experience in working with birth to threes who would like to move into running training courses. Contact: j.manningmorton@gmail.com.
- Inspiring Leaders runs a baby room leadership course: www.babyrooms-inspiringleaders.co.uk.
- Northamptonshire Council has an award-winning baby room project, devised by Veronica Lawrence, Claire Stevenson and Donna Luck: www.westnorthants.gov.uk/early-years-schools-and-education/northamptonshire-baby-room-project.
- Scottish arts organisation Starcatchers has produced a Reflective Guide For The Arts to try to capture how birth to threes participate in activities, to help babies’ exercise their right to be heard. It outlines five areas for creative artists to evaluate in relation to rights: curating the space, building sensitive, informed relationships, navigating identity, communication, and making time (such as the duration of the arts experiences). See: starcatchers.org.uk.
case study: ‘A question of wellbeing’
Christine Wilkinson is manager of Pikler-inspired setting The Early Years Nursery in Kidlington, Oxford. She says, ‘To really deepen your understanding as an educator, start in the baby room, and really attune yourself to how babies communicate. That will have a massive impact on the rest of your practice with all the other years, because babies are so sensitive to people.’
She has sent all staff on Pikler training since the setting opened ten years ago. Key to the approach is taking time to read babies’ cues before doing a care event such as changing their nappy.
She says, ‘I position myself and say to the baby, “I'm ready to do your nappy now”, and pause. And then I read what the baby says to my invitation. The baby might look at me, or they might move their arms up. Then I say, “I'm ready to pick you up now”. We're wide open for connection, and naturally babies want to step into that.
‘When I do consultancy in settings, the first thing they say is, “I've got 20 babies, where am I going to find the time to slow down and do that?” But doing it this way means the practitioner and the baby have learnt how to work together, it's more enjoyable and a lot quicker as the baby is actually co-operating.
‘All babies are lap-fed, in a specific order, and can now predict when it is going to be their turn.’ Wilkinson says ‘this really predictable environment helps them to feel really, really safe. They know what's happening and nothing is a surprise.’
The impact of this security on their learning is profound, she says. Each year she assesses whether the children would meet the expected level of development for the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) in the summer before they start Reception. She finds they would for ‘14-16’ of the 17 ELGs (the national average is 14) – and this is at one year before the EYFS profile actually takes place.
Wilkinson has also devised a therapeutic model, based on the work of Peter Levine, a US psychotherapist and trauma expert. Staff use a set of ‘feelings and needs cards’ to understand how they are feeling in a given moment – ‘to be able to look at what's the unmet need behind the feeling’, which they then explore. Wilkinson adds, ‘To be able to deliver the Pikler approach requires a certain level of embodiment within yourself. Asking am I tense? Where am I emotionally right now? You're also checking in physically because your hands are the world to a baby. They tell me whether the world is safe or unsafe.’
She adds the impact of this can be triggering because pactitioners ‘are forced to slow down, and to look at why is it uncomfortable to slow down? This is a wellbeing question, and to face up to this is to be honest and vulnerable. But doing this, we can start to improve our team's wellbeing.’
