Understanding your baby
- Postnatal (0 - 6 Months)
- English
- Modules
- Voiceover
- Course Modules
1.1 Welcome
1.2 This course
1.3 The hospital
1.4 A few questions
1.5 National resources for you
1.6 Local resources for you
1.7 What's next
2.1 Introduction and Home Activity
2.2 Baby brain development
2.3 You and your baby's brain
3.1 Introduction
3.2 What do babies communicate?
3.3 How do babies communicate?
3.4 Views on crying
3.5 Is it true? You can spoil a baby by picking him up too much when he cries?
3.6 Is it True? Babies need to cry as it’s good for their lungs
3.7 Is it True? Leaving a baby to cry will teach them to comfort themselves
3.8 Is it True? You should never leave a baby to cry
3.9 Is it True? Parents are biologically designed to want to respond to their baby’s cries
3.10 Is it True? Crying is an instinct; a baby hopes someone will respond to them
3.11 Recap and Home activity
4.1 Introduction and Home Activity
4.2 Responding to crying
4.3 Dealing with not knowing
4.4 Why some babies cry more than others
4.5 Crying due to pain such as colic, reflux or birth trauma
4.6 What might affect how a parent responds to crying?
4.7 Why does how a parent feel affect their response to crying?
4.8 Recap and Home Activity
5.1 Introduction and Home Activity
5.2 Getting to know your baby’s rhythms
5.3 Introducing the dance of reciprocity
5.4 The Dance of Reciprocity
5.5 Video of the Dance of Reciprocity
5.6 Rupture and repair
5.7 Home Activity: Observe the ‘dance of reciprocity’
6.1 Introduction and Home Activity
6.2 Helping babies to develop healthy sleep patterns
6.3 Why is sleep important for a baby?
6.4 How long should a baby sleep?
6.5 What helps you get to sleep?
6.6 What helps your baby get to sleep?
6.7 Where should babies sleep?
6.8 Crying and sleep
6.9 Home Activity: One new thing and Recap Quiz
7.1 Introduction and Home Activity
7.2 Your baby’s feeding pattern and cues
7.3 How is your baby's feeding pattern changing?
7.4 Mealtime memories
7.5 Current advice about introducing your baby to solid foods
7.6 Changes in advice over time
7.7 More information about introducing solid foods
7.8 Preparing to introduce solid foods
7.9 Home activity: Something that’s new in your baby’s development
8.1 Welcome!
8.2 Father’s time with baby
8.3 The importance of dads
8.4 Understanding your feelings after the birth
8.5 Fathers and breastfeeding
8.6 Breastfeeding - coping with other peoples’ opinions
8.7 Getting used to the change
8.8 Who wants to play?!
8.9 Home activity and end of Module Quiz
9.1 Introduction and Home Activity
9.2 Emotional and physical development
9.3 Emotional development
9.4 The first three months
9.5 Three to nine months
9.6 Nine to twelve months
9.7 Supporting your baby’s emotional and physical milestones
9.8 Play
9.9 Home activity: Playing with your baby
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Feedback from the home activity: playing with your baby
10.3 Other people looking after your baby
10.4 Choosing childcare: Nurseries
10.5 Choosing childcare: Childminders
10.6 Choosing childcare: Family and friends
10.7 End of Module quiz
11.1 Congratulations! And Recap Quiz
11.2 A few questions again
11.3 Acknowledgements and references
About this course
Your baby’s brain is making millions of connections every second, learning and establishing patterns that will set them up for a lifetime. No matter your family set-up, the important relationships in your child’s life help shape their emotional health and wellbeing, with their first three years being the most important period of their brain development.
Understanding your baby is for all parents, grandparents and carers welcoming a new baby and has been designed to include all the practical information and advice you might hope for from a traditional baby group, with the additional benefit of support around emotional and mental wellbeing for you and your baby. The resources and information included are focused on the first year of your baby’s life. You might find our course on Understanding your child: from toddler to teenager more helpful if your baby is over one.
Understanding your baby
Understanding your baby has been developed by a team of Clinical Psychologists, Child Psychotherapists, Health Visitors, Child and Family Practitioners, and, importantly, parents. Everything you will follow and learn in the course has been informed by experience and is designed to be practical; to help you and your family in your everyday experiences and emotions. You’ll also learn about the foundations of wellbeing and mental health, as well as how our brains develop in infancy and what this means for the way babies communicate and connect with their carers and their environment.
The course follows 11 Modules, each taking around 20 minutes and broken up into manageable chunks called Units. You’ll find a range of practical tools as well as emotional support and guidance for sleeping, feeding, playing, soothing and connecting with your baby, and some specialist material for fathers too.
The first few Modules look at your and your baby’s feelings and understanding your baby’s brain, which will help shape the approaches and ideas around the later sections. So, this means it needs to be followed in order, one Module at a time. You don’t need to do it all in one go, and our advice is to take breaks and spread out your learning.
Understanding your baby is designed for all parents in any situation, but you might find that perhaps you begin to feel you would benefit from more personalised or specialist support, and so there are some additional resources signposted throughout to guide you.
We know that there are many different families, with different backgrounds and shapes and sizes. We have tried to consider some of the different needs of families in this course, but it hasn’t been possible to account for all backgrounds. If your personal situation isn’t reflected, we still hope that you find something helpful in the main ideas about developing close, connected relationships between parents and children and welcome your feedback to improve its relevance.