Understanding my baby (0 to 2 years)
When a baby is born, they can’t talk, walk, or even hold up their head! But in just two years, they grow and learn so much. They learn to smile, make sounds, and recognise faces. They can learn to roll over, sit up, crawl, and even walk! They can also start saying their first words and understanding what people say.
Babies learn best when they feel safe and loved. That’s why their relationship with their caregiver is so important. When you understand your baby’s signals and what they need (like a cuddle, talking to them, comforting them when they cry), your baby learns that their needs will be met and this helps their brain grow so they feel happy and safe.
So, in those first two years, babies’ grow fast and they need lots of love and nurture to help them learn about the world. Here are some ideas to help with this.
Useful information
Let’s talk about bonding and attachment
Let’s talk about bonding and attachment
Bonding and attachment both mean feeling close, but they are a little different. Bonding is how a parent starts to feel love for their baby, even before the baby is born. Attachment is the strong, lasting love a baby feels for the person who takes care of them. This is not always easy and can sometimes take a lot of effort to start and build.
Babies can love and feel safe with more than one person, but the strongest attachment is often with the people who care for them when they are little.
Bonding and attachment are important for a baby’s development and wellbeing, now and in the future. When babies feel loved and safe with their parents or caregivers, they grow up feeling happy and good about themselves. This makes it easier for them to make friends and try new things as they get older.
Sometimes, it can be hard to feel close, especially if you are trying to cope with big feelings yourself (from things that might have happened in the past or are happening now).
A difficult time during the birth or afterwards can also mean it takes more time to get to know your baby. You might not have others around to help and this can feel lonely. This page will help you to find out what support is available.
Help with bonding and attachment
There are lots of things you can do to help you to build a bond with your baby and help your relationship grow. As with any relationship, it takes time to get to know your baby and this is okay. We like to think about this as “Staying in Love” rather than “Falling in Love”. This explains the idea in more detail:
Below is some more information about the many ways that can help you to get to know your baby and support your relationship to grow:
Let’s talk about building babies’ brains
Let’s talk about building babies’ brains
Emotion regulation
Everyone has big feelings, happiness, sadness, curiosity, fear. Babies can feel those things too but they don’t know how to handle those feelings yet. This is called emotion regulation, it means learning how to manage big feelings.
Because babies have not yet learned how to do this, when they are feeling sad or scared or frustrated your baby might cry, scream, or move their bodies to let you know that they are not okay. Until they learn words this is the main way that your baby will communicate their needs and their feelings. Babies rely on the adults caring for them to help them to feel better. You might rock them, sing to them, or cuddle them. Over time, babies watch and learn from others. As they grow, they start figuring out how to calm themselves down, such as sucking their thumb or coming to you for comfort.
To help babies learn how to manage feelings, it is important that you as the adult caring for them notice your own feelings too. How you react can affect how your baby feels. This is called co-regulation, it means staying calm so your baby can learn to stay calm too. This is not always easy. There are links below to help support your own emotional well-being, as well as supporting your baby with their feelings.
Help with your own feelings
Help with your baby’s feelings
- NHS Start for Life: Understanding your baby
- Best Beginnings: Baby buddy
- Tiny happy people: Parents of 0 to 3 year olds, CBeebies parenting
- HSE: Help your baby to manage their feelings
- Co-regulation in babies
Best Beginnings prolonged crying video
Let’s talk about play
Let’s talk about play
Play is important for babies, even when they are very little. When babies play, they learn new things and start to understand the world around them. It helps their bodies and their brains to grow. When you talk and play with your baby, they start to learn words and sounds which helps them to communicate as they grow. Playing with a caregiver can also help babies to feel loved and safe.
As adults, play can sometimes feel like hard work or you might feel uncertain about how to play with your baby. The next section gives some ideas of ways that you can play with your baby to support your relationship as well as help your baby to learn and grow.
Helping my baby make sense of their world
When babies play, they learn about the world, their feelings, and how to get along with others.
Depending on the age of your baby, you can use simple toys like soft balls, rattles, or blocks to support play. Take time to notice what your baby likes (or maybe doesn’t like) as they respond to what you are showing or offering them. And remember, you can also be a great resource or “toy” for your baby. Your face, your voice or you singing a nursery rhyme might be more interesting to your baby than any toy. Try it out and see how they respond. You might like to:
- sing a song to your baby
- talk about what you are doing as you move around with your baby
- read a book with your baby, younger babies tend to like books with textures to touch or bright pictures to look at. As babies grow they will enjoy helping you to turn the page.
- make funny faces and see if your baby tries to copy you, babies are wonderful at copying and love to learn by watching what others around them do. They are also busy learning how to take turns in relationships so plenty of practice at this is great.
- as your baby learns to move about by themself, it’s great to let them safely explore by crawling and touching different things.
Remember, playing with your baby is not just fun for them, it helps them grow up healthy and happy!
Help around play
Here are some links to help you to build your confidence in playing with your baby:
- Watch me play is a simple way for parents or carers to support and enjoy being with their baby or child, aged from birth to around eight years old. See about watch me play for more information
- Tiny Happy People: Activities
- NSPCC Learning: Look, say, sing, play early years resources to use and share with parents
- Leeds 50 things to do
Let’s talk about feelings
Let’s talk about feelings
When a baby is very little, their brain is growing at an incredible rate! It’s making lots and lots of new connections, thousands every second, to help them learn new things and understand the world.
When a baby feels loved and cared for by their caregiver, their brain grows in a way that helps them feel happy and healthy. When a baby smiles, cries, or makes noises, and someone talks back or gives them a hug, it helps their brain get better at understanding feelings and learning how to talk about these. There are hundreds of opportunities to do this every day but we know that this isn’t always easy. Here are some tips to support you.
Ways to help your baby’s brain to grow
- You could pay attention when your baby cries or smiles: This helps them feel safe and loved.
- You could offer hugs and cuddles: Babies need to feel close to people they love.
- You could talk and sing to your baby: Even if they don’t understand words yet, your voice helps them learn and feel happy.
- You could give them toys and chances to explore safely: Playing helps babies learn new things.
Remember, babies grow best when they feel safe and loved.
Help for building a baby’s brain
Here are some links to other ways that you can help to build your baby’s growing brain:
