Enabling Environments: Making Spaces...Baby room

We are planning to increase our baby room space and want to make the most of this opportunity to review the quality of this aspect of our provision. What principles should guide our decisions about environment and resources?

It's difficult to be brief about baby room provision but starting from a principled perspective is wise as this helps keeps the focus on the very particular needs of babies and the practitioners who care for them.

There is a lot of new and current reading material available on the subject, all building on the valuable work of the past and all well worth reading again. Revisit Birth to Three Matters - A framework to support children in their earliest years (DfES, 2002) with its clear messages about the principles of working with small babies as well as classics such as People Under Three: Young children in daycare (Goldschmied and Jackson, 2nd ed, 2004) alongside recently published What Happens in the Baby Room? (Community Playthings, 2012).

THE 'SPACE'

Whatever space you have for your baby room, the floor is going to be the most important aspect. It is the ultimate indoor playground for small people, providing learning and challenge as well as comfort, safety and reassurance. Flexibility should be your key principle so you can adapt the space to suit the needs of the babies and carers who use it. If you are lucky enough to have a large area, think about how you can use low-level partitions and storage to create smaller spaces within to provide both emotional as well as physical containment.

If space is at a premium, then flexibility is even more crucial, allowing you to respond to different needs at different times of the day. Your goal is to provide a space that promotes physical activity, fosters sensory exploration and supports rest and quiet times with the security of familiar and special adults always at hand.

As practitioners, you will spend a lot of time down on that floor so spend some time viewing it from a baby's perspective - and also consider what practitioners need to feel comfortable down there. Babies need relaxed, comfortable adults around them, so the space should work for practitioners too. Listen actively to their ideas, to what they know has worked well (or not) in the past and balance the needs of both.

THE 'STUFF'

It's a well-known fact that babies like the cardboard boxes better than the toys that come in them. There is a message there for us about how we resource baby rooms. Babies are probably not that interested in lots of shiny, plastic things that ping and pop and all taste the same, but they do like to put things - and that includes themselves - inside other things. They like to crawl in and out and find somewhere to sit from where they can view the world around them.

It isn't necessary to ban all plastic toys, especially items that children are familiar with from home, but just be aware that (given their expense) they might have limited use - and you don't want to be overloaded with them.

Babies like everyday things that they can grasp and are satisfying to hold, sniff and taste. They want to drop them, push and pull them and see them roll across the floor. An interesting item just out of their reach on the floor encourages them to put 'will into action' and prompts the urge to creep or crawl. Low-level, sturdy equipment provides a base to pull up and cruise round and later to clamber up on.

Open storage with a few selected items encourages children to find toys for themselves and to begin to enjoy putting them back again. Soft, inviting, comfy spaces with familiar smells reassure babies and provide them with places to cuddle up and share a book or special time with a key person.

Sleep spaces that they can access for themselves allow them some control and provide security and warmth when they need a nap or quiet time.

THE 'PEOPLE'

The most important resource in the baby room is, of course, the people working within it - the most important job in childcare and one that requires high levels of personal and professional skills to match stamina and enthusiasm. Ongoing training with regular support and 'supervision' are essential to support experienced staff, who often carry the role of mentoring newer, less experienced practitioners.

Elinor Goldschmied and Sonia Jackson pointed out something we should never allow ourselves to forget: the baby is the only person who doesn't really understand why they are there in the setting and not at home with their family. What babies need most when they are away from their families is loving attention. They need familiar adults who not only care for them but care about them. They need people who are attuned to them and their families, knowing them so well that they can help the child hold them in mind when they are apart and reassure the child they are also 'held in mind' while away from them.

They need adults who are curious and intrigued by small people and never bored in their presence.

If these are the key principles that drive the provision of care for babies outside their homes, then it should ensure that the number of carefully selected, trained and qualified staff is well matched to the numbers of babies and that the resources and the space available support those carers to do their job with relative ease - and with delight as well as satisfaction.

COMMUNITY PLAYTHINGS: WALL TO WALL

All the advice and resources you need for planning and furnishing a baby room are available from Community Playthings. As well as trusted favourites with the sector, such as storage units and low-play room dividers, the company offers innovative products and ranges including toddleboxes, for physical development; brower boxes, for exploration; and Dream Coracles (pictured). A new guide, What Happens in the Baby Room?, is also available. Visit: www.communityplaythings.co.uk for more information.

This feature is sponsored by Community Playthings

www.communityplaythings.co.uk