The mental health of babies and infants is a crucial aspect of their overall development. Between the ages of zero and three, children find themselves in a world full of new experiences, challenges, and relationships. While they may not be able to express their emotions and thoughts verbally, their early experiences play a significant role in shaping their mental well-being.
To help them navigate these first years and grow into confident and independent people, it's important that babies and young children have good mental health.
According to the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health (AAIMH), your baby's early social and emotional development is the 'building block' for how they will bond with others, manage their feelings and successfully live and learn later on.
Of course, tiny babies don't just achieve good mental health on their own. We explore the importance of promoting mental health in babies and infants and discuss how parents and early education can contribute to their development.
How can parents help babies thrive mentally?
Establishing a strong bond through nurturing touch, eye contact, and responsive caregiving helps infants feel secure, loved, and understood.
Parents should engage in gentle and loving communication with their babies. Things like talking, singing, and reading aloud will reinforce emotional connections while responding promptly to their cues and expressions, fostering a sense of trust.
Providing a safe, stimulating, and predictable environment for your baby ensures they have a consistent routine, which promotes a sense of security and stability.
Help your baby learn to regulate their emotions by offering comfort and reassurance during times of distress. Encourage healthy coping strategies, such as deep breathing exercises or cuddling.
The AAIMH says that 'secure, trusting relationships with their parents and closest carers are crucial to babies and lay a strong foundation for their later development'.
This means that as well as providing physical care, like nappy changes and nourishment, your baby also needs your social and emotional care. To foster good child mental health, it's important to:
- Provide your baby with a safe, nurturing, and supportive environment
- Respond sensitively to them in a calm, consistent, and predictable manner
- Show that you understand their needs and are connected with them
- Keep them away from high-stress situations
How early education can help
Early education contributes significantly to a baby's mental health and holistic development.
By enrolling your baby in early education, even for a few hours per week, you will be providing them with highly valuable social interactions as well as emotional development. These connections encourage empathy, communication skills, and cooperation.
Well-designed, high-quality early education environments offer age-appropriate activities and materials that inspire cognitive development. Engaging in age-appropriate play, exploration, and sensory experiences supports brain development and promotes positive mental health.
Early education programs also often include screenings to identify developmental delays or behavioural concerns. Early intervention can provide necessary support and help address potential mental health challenges promptly.
Through structured activities and positive reinforcement, early education programs encourage resilience and problem-solving skills in babies and young children. This resilience helps them navigate future challenges and adapt to new situations as they grow, learn, and thrive through their early years.
Promoting mental health in babies and infants is a vital aspect of their early development. Parents' nurturing and supportive care, along with high-quality early education programs, can significantly impact a baby's mental well-being. By focusing on building strong emotional connections, providing a safe environment, and accessing quality early education, parents can lay a solid foundation for their baby's healthy mental development, fostering resilience, and preparing them for a brighter future.
What effect does positive attention have on infant mental health?
In terms of responsiveness, the Raising Children Network talks about 'positive attention' – which is the way a parent responds to their youngster with interest and warmth.
Children of all ages benefit from this kind of attentiveness, but in terms of infant mental health, positive attention will make your baby feel valued and secure.
So, in your daily interactions, the Raising Children Network suggests that you show positive attention to support infant mental health by:
- Comforting your baby when they cry
- Smiling back when they smile at you
- Replying when they make sounds
- Talking about what’s going on around you both
- Showing interest in what they’re doing and urging them to explore
What is the link between responsiveness and resilience?
By taking a responsive parenting approach, your baby will feel loved and safe in their early years. And according to former AAIMH president Sally Watson, the flow-on effect of this is greater resilience later in life.
Ms. Watson told ABC, 'What the research has shown is the more responsive we are to infants in the first two years of life, the more autonomous they will be as adults. That is what security is about … it actually gives them more confidence to be able to take risks.'
Prioritising your child's social and emotional health during early childhood will help ensure that your child will have better resilience towards adult mental health struggles or mental illness later in life.
All in all, it's important for you to engage with your baby and support their social and emotional well-being from the get-go. Because how your child feels in the first three years of life has repercussions for the decades that follow.
