Building Blocks of Holistic Development: Key Messages for Caregivers of Infants and Toddlers

Being a caregiver comes with an unrelenting worry about how to provide a stimulating environment for my child to foster their holistic development.  

Biological, psychological and socio-cultural factors influence a child’s development and their interplay also significantly impacts their development. First and foremost, ensuring the physical health of the child is extremely important. This can be achieved through proper nutrition and maintaining proper hygiene behaviours related to the child. These include breastfeeding the child, washing hands with soap or sanitiser before touching the baby, avoiding kissing the baby’s face (kiss their toes instead), etc. Setting a proper routine for the child’s feeding, sleeping and playing is also essential to orient them a bit more to the day-night cycle of the world. Timely immunizations, and regular baby weight check-up with overall body health check-ups while monitoring proper nutritional intake of the child ensures healthy physical development of the child, reduces chances of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) and fosters a strong body and mind. 

Brain development is very rapid during infancy, new neural connections are formed in the child’s developing brain every second, and ergo it is essential to inculcate an environment that fosters progressive brain development. This brain development is mostly influenced by the experiences the child has. Therefore, the child must be provided with as many experiences as possible to build up neural connections in the brain. It is these neural connections that form the basis of all learning, behaviour and health of the child. Repetition of these experiences is also essential as it strengthens the existing neural connections, increases their efficiency and helps in building the brain architecture. This brain architecture consists of various established neural connections that interact with each other, e.g. neural connections of motor skills, emotions, behavioural control, logic, language and memory. All these neural connections are interlinked and cannot function in isolation. Considering the profound importance of experience in aiding brain development, emphasis should be laid on providing children with as many experiences as possible. These experiences can be given in the form of stimulation. In absence of adequate stimulations and experiences, the weak neural connections might fall prone to pruning, hence maintaining age-appropriate experiences and stimulations in the child’s environment are extremely essential. One such experience is provided in ‘serve & return’ interactions between the caregiver and the child. The child serves in the form of babble, gesture or facial expression and the caregivers return in the form of a directed meaningful response. For example, when the child makes eye contact with the caregivers, they can respond by smiling and talking to the child. ‘Serve and return’ interactions also occur when caregivers are feeding, bathing, and changing the clothes of the child. These interactions further help create different neural connections between different areas of the brain and also strengthen the bond between the caregivers and the child. 

Play serves as an excellent medium for both providing the child with necessary stimulation and also enhancing the ‘serve and return’ interaction. It is easy, friendly and relaxing for the child. Play enables the child to explore the world around them and gain mastery over the world. Games generate a sense of emotional security in the child that promotes healthy growth and development. Caregivers need to notice and understand what the child enjoys doing and why they enjoy doing that. For example, in games like peek-a-boo and patty-cake, the child always responds engagingly and happily. The possible reasons for this can be that the child has mastered the concept of disappearing & reappearing and these games are a rewarding experience for them (in terms of personal interactions). During play, the visual (caregivers’ face)- sound (caregiver’s voice) stimuli, the interaction of the caregivers with the child in the way of touching, and eye-to-eye contact helps strengthen their connection and helps caregivers become more sensitive to their child’s feelings by helping them learn, understand and read the child’s cues. 

The bond between the caregivers and the child is an indispensable source of psychological security for the child. It provides the child with a sense of safety and comfort reinforcing the notion that there is someone in the world who listens, pays attention and understands their needs. The role of caregivers thus entails a lot of responsibilities, which can at times, be overwhelming. Caregivers having a steady and warm presence, paying attention to their needs, and being responsive towards their actions are some of the ways through which they can develop this sense of security in the child. When a child is born they are unaware of the world around them and therefore, they look up to the only source available to them that helps them make sense of the world around them, those being the caregivers. 

Children need a home filled with warmth where they can relate to the people around them, a predictable environment where they know what to expect and a good sense of structure and reliability around them to develop an understanding of the world they live in and where they know their needs will be met. Caregivers’ interactions with the child also help in their concept and language development. The use of Parentese (also known as infant-directed speech or motherese, is a special way of talking that is interesting to infants and children and makes use of exaggerated tones, inflexion and prosody. We often refer to it as using a high-pitched, sing-song voice) and Sportscasting (a caregiver sing technique developed by Magda Gerber that is a way of giving a child a broader perspective of what is going on in a given situation.- a chance to pause and take in the situation) caregivers can label various stimuli, be it objects or people, in the immediate environment of the child and inculcate a lot of new words every day in the child’s routine and enhance their understanding of various concepts and phenomena of the world. For example, labelling a chair, conversing with the child while changing their diaper, etc. Caregivers also foster a sense of emotional security and belongingness in the child through their touch and skin-to-skin contact. Researchers state that children recognise their mother’s voice and smell at birth which means they also recognise their touch. It soothes the child and makes them aware that there is someone there for them who will take care of their needs and shelter them. Children usually cry to communicate their needs or express some type of discomfort; in such situations, Caregivers can make use of various soothing techniques to calm the baby before fulfilling their needs. Making white noises (e.g., the sound shhhh), swinging and rocking motion movements, and swaddling the baby are some of the ways in which the caregivers can attempt to calm the baby.

Caregivers, in addition, also serve as a model of feelings for the child. The caregivers’ behaviours in varying emotional states help them generate an understanding of how different feelings operate and what should be the relevant behaviours associated with them, hence, the caregivers should try not to let their feelings overwhelm them, especially, in the presence of the child and they should try to explain and portray them healthily and effectively. Healthy coping strategies should be adopted by the caregivers to ensure that the child doesn’t develop unhealthy coping mechanisms by observing them portray their emotions in an unhealthy way, e.g., hitting someone when things are not done according to one’s wishes. Caregivers should, therefore, be made aware about being conscious and mindful of how they behave in front of the child.

Experiencing stress and feeling overwhelmed is completely normal when it comes to caregivers as the caregivers’ lives change completely. What is important though is that the caregivers know when they need a break and accordingly ask for support from people close to them to take care of the child, while they can relax and replenish their energies. Many mothers also suffer from baby blues or postpartum depression after the birth of the child. Asking for necessary support and guidance during these times ensures healthy coping and restoring prior stable functioning for the mother and the rest of the family. Being sensitive to their own needs and mental health is also important as only a caregiver who is in good mental and physical health will be able to provide for their child efficiently. Separation anxiety also serves as a cause of distress for many new caregivers and children. The caregivers don’t want to leave their baby (they may feel guilty) and the absence of caregivers also generates feelings of worry and upset in the child. Tackling this separation healthily inculcates a sense of independence in the child. Children become distressed because they become fearful that they might not see their caregivers again. Helping children understand that the separation is only temporary by talking to them and discussing plans after their return helps alleviate this fear gradually in the child. 

The role of caregivers in fostering their child’s development is impossible to overestimate. The early foundation of the child’s brain affects all the learning, behaviour, physical and mental health of the child, which follows through their entire lifetime. Therefore, the most important thing that any caregiver can do to support their child’s development, particularly brain development, is to get to know the child, be able to read the child’s cues and engage in ‘serve & return’ interactions.