It’s the mealtime in the baby room. The babies are in their high chairs ready to be nourished, ready to experiment with food and ready to do the intensive learning and development that happens through day to day routines in the baby room. You don’t need me to tell you that in this moment, the best thing for the babies’ wellbeing and development is to be surrounded by positive interactions characterised by responsiveness, warmth and genuine interest from baby room educators.
You know that in this moment, the babies will pick up on so much and that all they pick up on will influence not only their self-esteem and self-regulation, but also their relationship with food, potentially for the rest of their lives. They will pick up on the curiosity and conversation that is part of mealtime (or not). They will pick up on the group dynamics and all the relationships around them. They will pick up on the willingness of adults to let them explore and be independent around food and they will pick up on displays of negative emotion associated with the food (e.g. disgust). So what happens now matters hugely. But you don’t need me to tell you that, because the chances are that you already know that.
So the question becomes – what might get in the way of us manifesting the positive, warm, responsive interactions that are beneficial in this daily routine? I’ve come up with this diagram to help us to reflect on some of the factors that might get in the way or enable these interactions:
- So first there are the individual factors. This includes how tired or hungry you are – we all know how much those things affect the way that we respond to other people, including babies. It’s also our emotional regulation, so if we’re feeling cross or upset about something that has happened earlier in the day, it’s much harder to tune into a baby’s needs and interests and respond playfully and with curiosity to their experimentation with food. It’s also our more general level of fulfilment in the work that we’re doing, how inspired we are to come to work or how distracted we feel by other things that our happening in our lives.
- Then there are the team factors. What is going on for the baby room team at the moment? Are there tensions in the team or ‘bad vibes’ between particular members of the group? Are there friendships that are so intense that they can even sometimes eclipse interactions with the babies? What is the overall feeling of morale among the team? Is it a positive environment to be in? It’s extremely difficult for a baby room educator to conjure up positive interactions with babies if the environment of the baby room is itself hostile or lacking in warmth.
- Finally, there are the wider factors that are likely to be out of the control of baby room educators or a baby room leader. For example, there might be issues with staffing whereby the ratios do not give enough slack for educators to give as much attention to particular babies as they would like. There might be issues with turnover or staff illness, so that there is a lack of consistency in which adults are in the baby room, and this in turn creates a sense of transience so that babies are less settled and adults are also always trying to find their way with each other.
A simple way in to reflecting on this, would be to look at the prompts and questions above and think about which – if any – apply most strongly to your current situation. If you had to identify one limiting factor for positive interactions at mealtime, what would it be?