Know

High-quality, supportive early-learning environments include responsive routines that support infant and toddler development, including physical growth and development. These consistent routines should offer emotional security, which in turn helps infants and toddlers feel safe to explore and learn. By participating in everyday routines, infants and toddlers learn about the world around them and receive messages from people and the environment about what is important and of what they are capable. These experiences provide opportunities to grow and develop.

Supporting Physical Development During Daily Routines

In the Infant and Toddler Learning Environments course, you learned the importance of daily routines and ways of supporting infant and toddler development throughout routines. This lesson will focus specifically on supporting physical development during particular daily routines. You also learned about key caregiving strategies that help you create responsive routines. Learning from families and observation remain two important strategies that you will continue to use when supporting the physical development of infants and toddlers during daily routines.

Ongoing observation is an important part of your role as a caregiver and it is an essential piece to the daily care and learning experiences you offer infants and toddlers. As you watch children and what they do and say, you are able to learn more about their strengths and needs, which provides you with information to help develop responsive routines.

Routines such as feeding and eating, diapering and toileting, and sleeping or resting provide multiple opportunities to support infant and toddler physical growth and development. For example, you may help toddlers climb up steps attached to the diaper changing table to provide gross-motor skill development. The table below offers examples of interactions and approaches to each moment with an infant or toddler in an effort to help build fine- and gross-motor skills and sensory experiences.

Other routines for infants and toddlers may include: arrival (hellos), hand washing, teeth brushing, and departure (goodbyes). Keep in mind:

• Temperament of the infant or toddler
• Family values, beliefs, hopes and dreams for their infant or toddler
• Your personal experiences and thoughts about physical development and routines
• Variables that impact the caregiving environment (e.g., physical set-up of room, caregiver schedules, materials available, etc.)

Supporting Physical Development through Individualized and Responsive Routines

Each infant and toddler approaches the world in his or her own way. Several things contribute to this approach, such as temperament, family culture, and experiences. In an effort to support each infant’s and toddler’s development and learning, you should provide individualized, responsive routines. Observe and reflect on what infants and toddlers are experiencing, and then think about additional ways to support them through your relationship, the environment, activities, and other experiences in an effort to help each individual child feel confident and successful in his or her growing skills.

Routines are a significant part of development and learning for infants and toddlers. Therefore, it is important to work with the infant’s or toddler’s family to ensure that routines are supportive of and based on the child’s strengths, needs and learning interests, while also complimenting the family’s values, beliefs and goals. This collaborative approach can help support all of the infants and toddlers in your care. Individualized approaches to routines include:

• Learning about and implementing routines based on families’ cultural preferences and practices related to feeding or eating, diapering and toileting, and sleeping and resting
• Creating individual schedules for routines
• Understanding the infant’s or toddler’s temperament style (e.g., sensitivity to touch, such as when using a wet wipe)
• Adjusting your pace for routines to match the pace and rhythm of the infant or toddler
• Provide plenty of time for infants and toddlers to practice their skills while eating, drinking, toileting, washing and dressing

Below are examples of what an individualized approach may look like during a care routine:

Caregiver, Ms. Raquel, learned from Rebecca’s family that they give her items to hold and manipulate during diapering routines. Rebecca is 4-months-old, and Ms. Raquel has noticed that she struggles holding onto different manipulatives as they appear to be too heavy for her. Ms. Raquel found lighter and thicker manipulatives, thinking these might be easier for her to explore. Ms. Raquel offered Rebecca a rattle made from soft fabric during a diapering routine. Ms. Raquel noticed she was able to grasp and hold onto this rattle. At the end of the day, Ms. Raquel shared this observation and information with Rebecca’s family.

Mr. Gregory and Charlie’s family have noticed that Charlie, 26-months-old, will cry and run away when it’s time to wash hands before and after mealtimes. Mr. Gregory shared with the family that Charlie seems to prefer the liquid soap and is able to take part in the routine more comfortably if he sings a song that describes the experience of touching and feeling the soap and water. “First we have to rub, rub, rub with soap…and now our hands are soapy and slippery…so let’s rinse them off!”

See

Do

Being a responsive caregiver means you:

• Provide a nurturing, consistent and responsive environment for infants and toddlers.
• Respond to the needs of infants and toddlers quickly and appropriately.
• Recognize that establishing relationships with the important adults in the lives of infants and toddlers is key.
• Modify your environment as infants and toddlers develop and change.
• Continuously examine and reflect on what you are observing from the infants and toddlers in your care, the environment you have created, as well as the interactions, experiences, and activities you offer.
• Balance the predictability and comfort of routines with the changing needs of infants and toddlers.

In essence, being a responsive caregiver means you do a lot!

Consider the descriptions above and try at least one of the following ideas below to offer a responsive approach to supporting physical development during routines:

• Offer toddlers a no-splash pitcher so they can practice pouring with minimal spills.
• Hang an acrylic safety mirror near the diapering table for infants.
• Post photographs or illustrations on hand washing so infants and toddlers can see the steps and have visual reminders.