Babies have intense feelings way before they can understand and deal with those feelings. When you sensitively respond, you not only build a strong a relationship with your baby, but your help her become an emotionally healthy person.

by Ruth A. Wilson, Ph.D.

Watch any infant, and you’ll have no doubt that babies have intense feelings or emotions. What to do with these feelings, however, can be problematic for both baby and parent. What can an infant do when he’s upset about being left alone or frightened when there’s a loud sound? And how should a parent respond to an infant’s cries when she’s put in a car seat for a trip across town?

One place to start in understanding your infant’s emotions is to consider the range of feelings typically expressed by babies. At first glance, we may think that, when awake, babies are in one of two states—either upset or happy. But there’s far more to babies’ emotions than that!

Close observation of infants reveals multiple expressions of emotions. While infants cry to express how they’re feeling, and after about the third month of life, smile, their expressions of emotions go beyond crying and smiling.

Watch closely, and you’ll see that your infant’s emotional expressions include interest, distress, disgust, anger, surprise, sadness, fear, and shame.

Responding in an understanding and sensitive way to your infant’s emotions helps to establish a strong bond and a positive relationship with your baby, as well as your own nurturing parenting style. The way you respond to your infant’s emotions also plays an important role in your child’s emotional and social development.

Babies don’t understand their feelings

We know that emotions are essential dimensions of every person’s experience and that emotions color our lives in multiple ways. We’re aware of how emotions can add interest and zest to our lives, but we’re also aware of how quickly emotions can send us off on destructive and painful paths.

As adults, we have far more tools than babies do for understanding and managing our emotions. We’ve developed these tools over the years and have done so with the guidance and support of significant people in our lives.

One of the tools we use in managing our emotions involves the integration of thinking and feeling. This integration enables us to regulate how we respond to or express what we are feeling.

Babies, on the other hand, are at the beginning stage of emotional development. They aren’t yet able to integrate emotions and thinking. A baby’s response to how he feels is reflexive—that is, without conscious control.

Keeping this in mind as you relate to your infant and develop your parenting style is beneficial to both you and your baby. You are less likely to feel angry and frustrated when your baby screams and cries, because you’ll realize that your child isn’t deliberately creating a difficult situation for you or the people around you. Your child is simply expressing how she feels.

Nurturing your baby through sensitive responses

As your child gets older, she will gradually be able to regulate her emotional responses. With assistance, she will become more aware of her own emotional states and learn to “think before she acts”—to exercise some conscious control over how she expresses her emotions. But babies need time, understanding, respect, and guidance to help them become emotionally healthy and competent individuals.

An excellent source of information and ideas for fostering your baby’s emotional development is Zero to Three, a national non-profit support organization for professionals, policymakers, and parents concerned with infants and toddlers. In an article on Zero to Three’s website about emotional development from birth to 12 months, one of the topics covered is “responsive care”—intentionally matching caregiving to what your baby needs.

For example, if an infant indicates by kicking and grabbing that he wants to hold the baby spoon—even though he still can’t feed himself—you can give him a spoon while you continue to feed him with another spoon. The baby’s emotions are understood and acknowledged.

With responsive care, you take the time to reflect on what the baby needs or wants and then figure out a way to show him that you understand and care.

Babies learn what they live

Observing and understanding your baby’s emotional expressions are key factors in fostering your child’s development.

In their book (published by Zero to Three), Bringing Up Baby: Three Steps to Making Good Decisions in Your Child's First Years, child-care specialists Claire Lerner and Amy Laura Dombro offer some useful ideas on how parents can observe their child to understand what she is feeling and thinking. The authors explain three steps: "Develop Self-Awareness," "Tune in to Your Child," and "Make Sensitive and Effective Decisions."

For infants and toddlers, Lerner and Dombro note, learning and living are the same thing. If babies feel understood, respected, loved, and cherished, they are more likely to become understanding, caring, respectful, and loving themselves.

To paraphrase Dorothy Law Nolte’s classic “Children Learn What They Live,” if babies live with encouragement, they learn confidence; if they live with approval, they learn to like themselves. And if they live with acceptance, they learn to love.

 

Dr. Ruth Wilson is an educational consultant and curriculum writer. Her primary areas of expertise are early childhood environmental education and peace education.

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