There is a phrase I hear surprisingly often when people talk about working with babies: “She’s just really good with babies.” Sometimes it is said about the person who seems completely at ease sitting on the floor with a baby, who somehow knows when to move closer and when to hang back, who can make a baby laugh without turning themselves into an entertainer, who notices the beginnings of tiredness before it becomes distress. And sometimes we say the opposite. Someone starts working in the baby room and they seem awkward. They stand back. They don’t quite know where to put themselves. They wait to be told what to do. They don’t show much initiative. And very quickly, we can start wondering whether perhaps they are simply not a baby person.
I think we need to be really careful about this.
Of course, people bring different qualities with them when they begin working with babies. Some people are naturally more confident, playful or physically relaxed. Some have lots of experience with babies in their own families; others may barely have held a baby before they walk into the room on their first day. But being a brilliant baby room educator is not something you are simply born knowing how to do. Baby room educators are made, not born. They develop through experience, observation, conversation, encouragement, reflection and, crucially, through being surrounded by other people who help them learn how to see babies.
That is why I think we need to take baby room induction much more seriously.
Babies make different demands of us
Walking into a baby room for the first time can be overwhelming. There is an enormous amount happening, but much of what matters is incredibly subtle. Babies are communicating constantly, but much of that communication does not come through words. You have to begin noticing faces, bodies, movements, sounds, rhythms, preferences and tiny changes in behaviour. You have to learn that one baby rubbing their face means something slightly different from another baby doing exactly the same thing. You have to get to know how individual babies like to be comforted, how they show you that they have had enough, what captures their attention and what helps them feel safe.
At the same time, the day itself works differently. A baby room cannot simply run according to a neat sequence of activities in which everybody does roughly the same thing at roughly the same time. Individual rhythms of sleeping, eating, playing, resting and needing closeness overlap with one another, and educators have to become increasingly able to read and respond to that complexity. The induction toolkit I’ve developed deliberately spends time helping new educators notice the rhythm of the room and how babies themselves influence it, rather than simply teaching them a timetable to follow.
And then there is the emotional intensity of the work. You might be comforting a distressed baby who does not yet know you. You might be receiving a baby from a parent who is finding separation incredibly difficult. You might spend a long time helping one baby settle to sleep while simultaneously being aware of what is happening elsewhere in the room. Baby room work can be joyful and deeply rewarding, but it can also be (and most often is!) physically and emotionally demanding.
None of this is obvious just because somebody has an early years qualification. And none of it magically appears because somebody is “good with babies”.
“Baby room educators are made, not born.”
What happens when we expect people to just pick it up?
One of the things I have noticed in baby rooms is how easily a new educator (including many of my lovely students entering placement) can become stuck.
They arrive in a room where everyone else seems to know exactly what they are doing. Experienced educators know that this baby will probably need a sleep soon, that another baby has become fascinated by posting things into containers, that this parent needs a little extra reassurance at handover, that the bottles are prepared in a particular way, that the room becomes hectic around a particular point in the morning and that somebody needs to start thinking ahead before it happens and on and on it goes…
The new educator knows none of this.
So they wait.
They wait to be asked to change a nappy. They wait for somebody to tell them which baby needs lunch because they were asleep during the regular lunchtime. They wait to be invited into play. They stand slightly awkwardly while an experienced educator comforts a crying baby because they do not know whether stepping in would be helpful or intrusive. And after a while, the team starts noticing that this new person “doesn’t show much initiative”.
But sometimes what we are seeing isn’t a lack of initiative at all. It is uncertainty.
If I don’t yet understand the rhythms of this room, the babies in it, the relationships between people or the thinking behind what experienced colleagues are doing, then taking initiative is actually quite risky. I don’t know when I am supposed to step forward and when I am supposed to hang back. I don’t yet know what good judgement looks like here. And it’s really understandable that amidst this uncertainty, there is a tendency to freeze. In fact, I’m pretty sure that whether inside a baby room or another context all together, we’ve experienced exactly that effect – not knowing what to do or how to be helpful and as a result, simply freezing.
That changes the question we need to ask. Instead of “Why aren’t they taking more initiative?”, perhaps we should ask about educators who are new to the baby room: “What do they need to notice, understand and experience before they can confidently know what to do next?”
This is why the 30-day baby room induction toolkit in the baby room improvement hub explicitly builds towards greater initiative rather than demanding it immediately. The first week gives educators permission to watch, listen, ask questions and gradually participate; later, as their understanding of babies, interactions and relationships develops, they begin contributing their own ideas and taking more responsibility. That feels to me like a much more realistic account of how professional confidence actually grows.
“Sometimes what we are seeing isn’t a lack of initiative at all. It is uncertainty.”
Induction is not showing somebody where everything is
This is probably the biggest shift I would like us to make.
Of course, a new educator needs practical information. They need to know where things are kept, how particular routines work, what policies they need to follow and who they should speak to when they are unsure. Safeguarding, safer sleep, first aid, health and safety and your other mandatory induction processes remain absolutely essential; the baby-room-specific induction sits alongside those rather than replacing them.
But if our induction consists mainly of “Here are the nappies, this is where we prepare bottles, this is the sleep room, here are the children’s folders…”, we have inducted somebody into the mechanics of the room without necessarily inducting them into its practice.
“We can induct somebody into the mechanics of the room without inducting them into its practice.”
A really good baby room induction helps someone understand why things happen as they do. It helps them notice how an experienced educator greets different babies differently. It draws their attention to the pause before somebody responds to a baby’s communication. It helps them see that a nappy change is not an interruption to the “real learning” but a rich one-to-one relational experience. It helps them notice that a mealtime can be full of conversation, independence and connection. The Noticing Cards in the toolkit are built around precisely these tiny moments — noticing babies communicating without words, educators pausing before responding, care routines becoming opportunities for one-to-one interaction, and babies choosing what to explore.
In other words, induction should help a new educator learn what to pay attention to.
And that is a much deeper kind of professional learning than telling somebody where the bibs live!
Induction is also about belonging
There is another part of induction that we sometimes underestimate. When somebody joins your baby room, you are not only helping them learn a job. You are helping them work out whether they belong there.
That starts immediately. Do people know they are coming? Does somebody look genuinely pleased to see them? Is there space for them to watch without feeling useless? Can they ask questions without worrying that everybody else thinks the answer is obvious? Does somebody notice something they did well on that first day? Do we show curiosity about the person they are and the strengths they might bring, rather than simply trying to mould them into a copy of the educator who has been there longest?
One of my favourite parts of the toolkit is actually one of the simplest: a little welcome postcard from the baby room leader. It includes two unfinished sentences: “One thing I’m especially looking forward to seeing you bring to our team is…” and “One thing I hope you’ll discover during your first month is…”
That is such a small gesture. But think about the message it gives someone on their first day: we were expecting you; we are pleased you are here; you already have something to contribute; and we are going to help you grow.
That is induction too.
So what might thoughtful baby room induction look like?
There are a few principles that matter more than having the perfect induction folder.
First, slow it down. New educators do not need to demonstrate everything immediately. Give them genuine permission to observe. Sitting on the floor and watching an experienced educator interact with babies is not “doing nothing”; it can be some of the richest professional learning available, particularly when somebody then helps the educator put words around what they noticed.
Second, make the invisible visible. Experienced baby room educators make hundreds of tiny decisions that they may barely notice themselves anymore. Say some of those decisions out loud. “I noticed she was turning her head away, so I stopped for a moment.” “I’m getting his lunch ready slightly earlier because he woke early today.” “I didn’t join that play straightaway because I wanted to see what she would do next.” These tiny explanations give a new educator access to the professional thinking beneath the practice.
Third, give people things to notice, not just things to do. You could try this tomorrow without buying or creating anything at all. Give a new educator one noticing question for part of the day: How do babies tell us what they need without words? How do different babies seek comfort? What happens when an educator waits before responding? How does the rhythm of the room change across the morning? Then talk about what they saw.
Fourth, create regular opportunities to talk. They do not need to be hour-long supervision meetings. The Conversation Guide accompanying the toolkit suggests just 15–20 quiet minutes at the end of each week, with questions designed to help the educator make sense of what they are experiencing rather than test what they know. A question as simple as “What has surprised you this week?” or “Which baby are you beginning to feel you know?” can tell you far more about how somebody is settling in than another tick-box exercise.
And finally, notice growth. Tell somebody when you see their confidence changing. Tell them when you notice a baby beginning to seek them out. Tell them when they handle a difficult moment calmly, when they spot a cue they would have missed two weeks ago, or when they make a thoughtful suggestion about the environment. Confidence grows partly through experience, but also through having somebody else help us recognise that we are becoming more capable.
To wrap this up, let’s agree that we need to move away from the idea that someone either has it with babies or they don’t. Baby room educators grow into this work. They learn to notice more, understand more, respond with greater confidence and gradually find their own place within the life of the room. A thoughtful, baby-room-specific induction gives that process the time and attention it deserves.
Baby room educators are made, not born. Let’s make sure we’re giving them the chance to become brilliant ones.
Want some help putting this into practice?
The BRIL Baby Room Induction Toolkit takes this approach and turns it into a supported journey through an educator’s first 30 days in the baby room.