Tutorial 6 · Recognizing and Supporting
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Social and Emotional Strategies to Support Young InfantsSome simple things that adults often do or can be encouraged to do that help to grow infants social and emotional health include; gently holding and cuddling children often, enriching children’s daily routines such as meal, bath and nap times, by sharing looks, smiles, conversations, and stories and attentively respond to children’s attempts to communicate with facial expressions, gestures, cooing, babbling, and words. Adults can gently mirror infant's sounds and expressions. Adults caring for young infants can often struggle with the child's self regulatory patterns including sleeping and calming. Most new parents experience sleepless nights during the first three months of their child’s life. Although young infants spend up to 16 hours per day sleeping, their sleep patterns often do not follow the same day-night patterns that adults typically prefer. It is not uncommon for newborns to sleep for only an hour or two at a time. Newborn infants typically need to eat approximately every 3-4 hours (more frequently for infants who are breastfed). By about 3 months of age, infants typically begin to sleep for longer periods of time. By about 6 months, many infants sleep through the night. This is the age when infants typically are able to eat enough during the day that they can sleep through the night without getting hungry. Infants may develop consistent routines between 4-6 months of age. Until that time, feeding and sleeping work best when they are on the baby’s own unique schedule. Nevertheless, parents can help set the stage for sleep routines in early infancy. Parents can:
Sometimes an ECMH consultant will get a referral for an infant that is "fussy" or hard to calm. Usually infants have a so-called “fussy” period each day, most frequently in the evening hours. It is a period when it seems like nothing is working in terms of soothing the baby. Fortunately, for most infants, these “fussy” periods do not last long. As the infant develops they are less frequent in both number and length. The length peaks at about three hours per day at age six weeks and decreases to one or two hours by three or four months. Typically the infant calms down within a few hours and seems to be happy throughout the rest of the day. If the crying behavior does not stop and intensifies and persists throughout the day as well as the night, the cause might be something that needs to be checked more thoroughly by the child’s pediatrician or other health specialist. A possible cause may be colic. About one-fifth of infants develop colic. Infants with colic often cry and scream. Their stomach is enlarged or distended with gas and they extend and pull up their legs in order to pass the gas. Another indicator is that the crying happens throughout the day and it usually becomes worse in the early evening.
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This website was made possible by grant number 90YD0268 from the Office of Head Start, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views or policies of the funding agency nor does publication in any way constitute an endorsement by the funding agency. |
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