Key takeaways for caregivers

• Babies’ intake of new information that is emotionally relevant might vary depending on when they last slept.
• After being awake for an extended period, babies become attuned to negative emotional information.
• Supporting babies in their sleep requirements, such as by maintaining consistent bedtime rituals, can support their well-being.

Sleep helps babies grow and develop

Have you ever planned to take your baby to playgroup but decided not to because it was nearly naptime? Many parents assume that their baby’s readiness to engage with others is connected to how wide awake or sleepy they are. But does all their learning happen only when they are wide awake?

Babies were actually better at recognizing angry and sad faces after they had been awake for a longer time.

Babies spend most of their time sleeping. Rather than being a waste of time, sleep helps their growing bodies and brains: Sleep plays an important role in babies’ physical growth and cognitive development, including their learning and memory.

Babies who nap soon after learning new information remember more of the newly acquired information and can use it more effectively to solve new problems than can infants who do not nap soon after learning.

Compared to these insights into the benefits of sleep when it occurs after learning, we know little about the relevance of infant sleep that occurs prior to a learning opportunity.

In everyday life, parents might observe their baby getting cranky when naptime or bedtime approaches. However, researchers have not extensively studied whether babies process information differently depending on whether they have recently slept.

Does sleep enhance babies’ learning of emotional information?

Surprisingly little research has been conducted on whether infants’ learning of emotional information is affected by their sleep patterns. To start addressing this gap in knowledge, we asked: What are the effects of sleep timing on six-month-olds’ recognition of emotional faces?

Photo: Tim Dennell. Creative Commons.

We focused on recognizing emotional faces because faces are frequently encountered and are important visual stimuli for babies. Babies learn about faces quickly.

From birth, babies prefer to look at faces over other visual patterns. They quickly begin to recognize the face of their caregiver, and prefer to look at faces more like the ones in their environment (e.g., preferring faces of people of their race over faces of people of other races).

Beyond the value of recognizing familiar faces, faces are also important because they display social and emotional cues that mirror a person’s mood. Keeping in mind who looked friendly and who looked angry might be particularly important for babies, who depend on the care of others for their survival and comfort.

Studying infant sleep and recognition of emotional faces

We were interested in discovering how easily babies recognized human faces showing different emotional expressions based on whether the babies had recently slept or been awake for an extended period.

Because research has shown that sleep benefits babies’ learning and memory, we predicted that babies would find it easier to keep emotional faces in mind when they were well rested than to do so when they were sleepy.

We visited 17 six-month-olds and their caregivers in their homes over two days. One day, we visited after the babies had awakened from a recent and long nap. The other day, we visited toward the end of the babies’ longest period of wakefulness (which averaged 140 minutes).

The babies in our study may have been better at recognizing sad and angry faces when they were sleepy because the negative information matched their own current emotional state.

On both occasions, we had each baby sit on their caregiver’s lap and tested infants’ visual memory through a procedure commonly used in research.

Babies were shown pictures of female adult faces displaying neutral, sad, or angry expressions.

We filmed babies’ looking times to each face using a hidden camera, arranging the presentation in the same way each time: First, babies saw a picture of a person (for example, looking angry). Next, they saw the same picture next to a picture of a new person with the same emotional expression as the first one.

When babies are shown a picture for a longer time, they grow tired of it (just as adults do) and pay less attention. When they see a new picture alongside the old picture, they pay more attention to the new one, but only if they remember the old one. If they do not remember the old picture, they might look at both the old and the new pictures for the same amount of time.

Photo: Hessam Nabavi. Unsplash.

Babies had better memory for angry and sad faces after being awake

Using this logic, we found some surprising results. In contrast to our predictions that recent napping would strengthen memory, babies were actually better at recognizing angry and sad faces after they had been awake for a longer time.

They failed to recognize these kinds of faces when they had recently slept. In other words, it appeared that the babies were particularly receptive to emotionally negative information after they had been awake for a long time.

How might babies see their social world at different stages in their sleep-wake patterns?

The babies in our study may have been better at recognizing sad and angry faces when they were sleepy because the negative information matched their own current emotional state.

As babies get tired, they can become grumpy which, in turn, might lead them to process information that matches this state. Researchers call this mood-congruent learning. While we did not test this explanation in our study, it should be an avenue for further research.

Photo: Jerald Jackson. Creative Commons.

Although our study was small, the results suggest one mechanism that might link early sleep problems and later impairments in mental well-being. Assuming that sleep problems regularly lead to fatigue and delayed sleep onset, affected babies might be susceptible to taking in emotionally negative information efficiently and storing it in their memory.

As a consequence, the developing knowledge base of infants with sleep problems versus infants without sleep problems could be quite different, leading to different, perhaps more pessimistic, views on the (social) world.

These speculative ideas clearly require more research. Our results suggest that timing of sleep could influence which type of information babies focus on and process.

What does this mean for parents?

Due to the small size of our study, our findings about processing emotional information must be considered preliminary. However, it is clear from previous research that sleep plays an important role in early development.

Having a calm and consistent bedtime routine helps babies make the most of their learning and the fun interactions they have had during the day. Learning to read babies’ early signs of tiredness, and adjust to changing sleep schedules as they grow, can help babies enjoy the benefits of good sleep.

The post Tired and cranky: Babies who have been awake for a while are more sensitive to sad and angry faces appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• It is important for fathers to begin bonding with their baby during pregnancy; singing, reading, and talking to their baby can support this early bond.
• Fathers can also talk with their partner and trusted others about their hopes and concerns for their baby during pregnancy as a way to prepare for early parenting.
• During pregnancy, fathers are encouraged to connect with other expectant or new fathers to begin building a parenting support network.

Key takeaways for healthcare and social services programs 

Make pregnancy spaces father friendly 

• Encourage fathers to attend obstetrics and ultrasound appointments, and provide a welcoming space for addressing fathers directly, asking if they have questions or concerns, and supporting their involvement in the pregnancy process.
• Provide supportive spaces and programs for fathers to connect with each other and learn about topics related to pregnancy and early infant care.
• Include pictures of fathers and infants in obstetrics and pediatrics offices and reading material that may appeal to men in waiting rooms.

Talk with fathers directly about their past and present experiences

• Ask fathers about their own experiences with the pregnancy and their hopes and concerns for their infant.
• Include fathers in early intervention programs beginning at intake and highlight fathers’ importance for the health and well-being of their infant.
• Screen expectant fathers (and mothers) for Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders, past maltreatment and trauma histories, and current exposure to adversity, and connect them with mental health services as needed.

Key takeaways for policymakers 

• Create systems that coordinate and connect fathering programs, such as state-level fatherhood commissions.
• Require early intervention programs to include fathers whenever possible as a central component of interventions rather than a suggested add-on service to families.
• Create programs and services that support fathers in bonding with their babies during the perinatal period, such as establishing ‘fatherhood navigators’ at hospitals that support fathers during prenatal visits, labor and delivery, and with post-natal infant care.

While fathers are increasingly expected to be actively involved in the pregnancy and post-natal care of their newborn, social narratives have not kept pace with these expectations.

Prenatal emotional bonds are a foundation for healthy parent-child relationships

Expecting and preparing for a baby is a time of excitement and joy for many parents. In addition to stocking up on diapers and onesies, parents-to-be are also preparing psychologically for the birth of their new baby (Dayton et al., 2020). The prenatal emotional bond parents form with their baby is essential and powerful – it prepares them to care for their newborn (Raphael-Leff, 2005).

In turn, early sensitive parenting – feeding, bathing, changing, holding, and soothing the baby – sets the stage for a strong and enduring parent-child relationship. For fathers, early infant care is associated with feelings of parenting competence (Dayton et al., 2015), and thereby supports their growing bond with their baby.

Prenatal bonding is often different for mothers and fathers

For the person carrying the baby (typically the mother), the prenatal emotional bond with the infant is supported by the biology of pregnancy – hormonal changes, the baby’s movements inside her (“quickening”), and a growing baby bump all contribute to her emotional connection with her baby.

Her growing body also alerts the outside world that she is expecting a baby and, across cultures, many social practices acknowledge, honor, and support her mothering role. The baby bump may compel passengers on the bus to give up their seat, accommodates nearby parking at the grocery store, and can inspire smiles and kind words from strangers.

In contrast, the parent who is not carrying the baby (the father or the mother’s partner) is an external observer of the baby’s prenatal growth. Expectant fathers also undergo prenatal hormonal and physiological changes that support post-natal parenting behaviors (Saxbe et al., 2017), but because these changes are not visible to others, expectant men experience fewer social acknowledgements of their status as fathers-to-be than do expectant women.

Photo: Amina Filkins. Pexels.

Prenatal bonding is also a slower process for fathers than it is for mothers. A father’s prenatal bond with his baby tends to increase as the pregnancy progresses (Habib & Lancaster, 2010) and is influenced by his own mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety; Cameron et al., 2016) and by his relationship with the mother of his baby (Ahlqvist-Björkroth et al., 2016).

Dispelling misconceptions about the importance of fathers’ early involvement

However, when expectant fathers are given time and space to talk, they have a lot to say! In addition to feelings of excitement and pride, fathers describe their growing feelings of responsibility – not just for the immediate post-natal period, but also for the care their child will need throughout life.

However, while fathers are increasingly expected to be actively involved in the pregnancy and post-natal care of their newborn, social narratives have not kept pace with these expectations. Therefore, fathers may wrongly believe that their most important parenting role does not begin until their children are older (Dayton et al., 2016). Notably, fathers who believe strongly in the importance of early fathering for the health and well-being of young children are also more likely to feel a strong emotional bond with their infant prenatally (Dayton et al., 2019), and may therefore be more prepared for post-natal infant care.

Fathers’ involvement improves babies’ development

The research is clear: When fathers are involved in the lives of their babies beginning in pregnancy, healthy outcomes for their babies are improved – prenatal, birth, and newborn health outcomes are better and per-infant health care costs are reduced (Alio et al., 2010; Salihu et al., 2014). For mothers and fathers in areas of the United States like Detroit, where maternal and infant morbidity and mortality rates constitute a public health crisis, fathers’ involvement can reduce the negative effects of systemic factors such as institutional racism that are literally killing black mothers and babies.

So how do men bond with their babies and what can be done to support them? Research is beginning to shed light on the ways in which men form prenatal relationships with their babies and this work suggests some ways to help.

Encouraging fathers’ involvement supports father-infant bonding

Research has demonstrated that the quality of the prenatal father-infant relationship is related to the quality of the post-natal father-infant relationship (Vreeswijk et al., 2014). However, research also suggests that expectant fathers’ emotional connection to their infant begins somewhat later in pregnancy than it does with mothers (Ives, 2014) – likely due to the physiological and social differences they experience. Many men say they must rely on the mother as a gatekeeper (Draper, 2002), for example, to be invited to feel the baby’s movements in utero and to be notified of obstetrics visits. These experiences may create a sense of distance from the infant.

When fathers are involved during pregnancy, outcomes for infants improve.

Mothers can support the father-infant bond by encouraging fathers to be actively involved in the pregnancy. Fathers’ involvement can include talking and singing to their babies and attending prenatal medical appointments. They can also talk with the baby’s mother about important newborn care decisions, such as whether the baby will be breast- or bottle-fed (Dayton et al., 2019). In this way, fathers can care for and bond with their baby even before the baby is born.

Fathers can also feel closer to their baby by talking about them with others. Friends and family members can provide spaces for expectant fathers to talk about their hopes and dreams for their baby, as well as their worries and concerns.

Perhaps because mothers are still perceived as the “primary” parent in infancy and early childhood, many fathers connect with the women in their lives to support them during pregnancy and early parenting (Dayton et al., 2016). But when other fathers reach out to share pregnancy expectations and answer questions, expectant fathers describe feeling a deep sense of support and connection with them (Walsh et al., 2014). Programs that encourage men to develop parenting support systems with each other may have powerful effects on improving mental health and increasing feelings of parenting confidence.

Social systems should emphasize the importance of fathers’ role and services for expectant dads

Social systems also play a role. Within the health care system, fathers often feel ignored and report feeling unwelcome at obstetrics appointments and ultrasound scans (Widarsson et al., 2015). Yet when fathers are included and involved in these appointments, they feel more connected to their baby, and they often feel a surge of pride and motivation to be good fathers and partners to the baby’s mother (Walsh et al., 2014).

To support and encourage these feelings, medical personnel can involve fathers in medical appointments by including them in conversations about the medical status of the mother and baby, and by explicitly asking fathers if they have questions or concerns. In addition, by intentionally featuring pictures of fathers and infants in obstetrics and pediatric waiting rooms and displaying magazines that appeal to fathers, health care professionals can help fathers feel welcome in the space (Albuja et al., 2019).

Health care providers’ offices are often the first (and sometimes only) place where parental well-being can be assessed. Although stigma still exists that may prevent fathers from talking about their mental health, many fathers struggle with feelings of depression and anxiety as they prepare for the birth of their baby – just as many mothers do (Dayton et al., 2017).

Photo: Justin Thompson. Pexels.

Fathers may also find that past exposure to traumatic events influences their ability to bond with their baby during pregnancy (Dayton et al., 2019). Health care providers are encouraged to screen fathers (and mothers) for Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders, and to provide compassionate support and referrals to mental health services as needed (Walsh et al., 2020).

Within most social services systems, prenatal and early childhood intervention services are targeted almost exclusively to mothers. Despite increased efforts to also provide programs for fathers, services for dads are often designed and delivered as both optional and secondary to the central intervention with the mother.

This approach reinforces social narratives that fathers are less important than mothers during pregnancy and as parents to their young children. It also ignores growing evidence that interventions that target the co-parenting relationship, and therefore attend equally to both parents, yield positive effects on child outcomes (Hawkins et al., 2022).

Parenting programs should include fathers in early childhood interventions from the very beginning of the service delivery process. Ensuring that agencies are father friendly, in terms of office décor and a welcoming approach to fathers, for example, is also crucial.

Conclusions: Fathers’ involvement has a significant and enduring impact

When fathers are involved during pregnancy, outcomes for infants improve. Fathers form early, prenatal, relational bonds with their babies that support their parenting after the birth of their child. Improving services to expectant fathers, especially in communities where infant mortality and morbidity are high, can help the negative effects of racism, poverty, and violence on maternal and infant outcomes. Programs and policymakers can help support prenatal father-infant relationships by creating prenatal spaces that include fathers and by implementing early intervention programs for fathers, and by making sure dads are a part of existing programs.

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• Baby girls tend to have bigger vocabularies than baby boys, but that might not be due to gendered parenting practices.
• Parents talk more to babies after the babies have said their first words, regardless of whether the baby is a boy or a girl.
• Caregivers can support language development by speaking with and responding to their infants, regardless of their child’s gender, age, or language abilities.

Why are baby girls more advanced in language development than baby boys?

On average, baby girls have better language skills than baby boys. Researchers have found that girls tend to say their first words earlier, say more words, and combine words into sentences earlier. Where does this gender difference come from?

Maybe caregivers talk more or differently with baby girls than with baby boys in ways that support early language development. While this could explain the gender difference in early language skills, prior studies investigating this possibility have yielded conflicting results, so it is unclear whether early language input differs by gender.

While it may look like caregivers talk more to girls than to boys, they are really talking to talkers more than to non-talkers.

Another possibility comes from evidence that caregivers are sensitive and responsive to their children’s language skills. For example caregivers are more likely to respond to speech-like vocalizations (like “bababa”) than to non-speech-like vocalizations (like crying or laughing). This means that parents might talk more to babies with better language skills. Since girls have better language skills than boys on average, it is difficult to figure out if differences are due to children’s gender or their language skills.

Studying gender differences in babies’ language environments

To untangle the roles of gender and early language skills, my colleague at Duke University, Elika Bergelson, and I conducted a study that asked: How does babies’ language experience differ depending on their gender and their language skills?

Our study used data from a year-long examination of children’s early language environments called SEEDLingS. We followed the language development of 44 children from ages 6 to 18 months. The children were growing up in the United States and learning English, and most were White from middle-class families.

Photo: Yan Krukau. Pexels.

When babies are 6 months old, they have not begun to talk, but they have started to understand words. Many babies say their first words around the time of their first birthday, and most become chatty toddlers within a year, by 18 months. By investigating infants across this age range, we captured changes in children’s language environments over time.

In our study, we collected monthly audio and video recordings from each family. We listened to the recordings and analyzed the nouns (like “apple” or “shoe”) that the babies heard and the nouns that the babies said. In total, our study analyzed more than 250,000 instances of nouns from more than 2,000 hours of recordings of babies’ language environments.

Baby girls had larger vocabularies than baby boys

We found that girls had bigger vocabularies than boys. On average, girls said 29 different nouns by the end of the study, while on average, boys said only said 11 unique nouns. This gender difference in vocabulary also increased over time, meaning that girls’ vocabularies grew faster than boys’.

Children play an active role in their language development – they influence their own language learning environments as they grow by engaging in conversation with their caregivers.

After replicating the finding that girls have bigger vocabularies than boys, we asked: Is this gender difference due to parents talking differently or talking more to girls than to boys? That is, could caregivers’ speech drive the gender difference in children’s vocabularies? To answer this question, we analyzed how many nouns the babies heard, depending on their age, gender, and whether they had said their first word yet.

Caregivers talked more to talkers, regardless of babies’ gender

Caregivers did not talk more to baby girls than to baby boys in our study. On average, babies heard 122 nouns per hour in the recordings, but this did not differ by children’s gender. However, both girls and boys heard more nouns after they began to talk. On average, babies heard 106 nouns per hour in the recordings before they started talking, but after they said their first word, they heard an average of 140 nouns per hour.

These findings suggest that girls’ early advantage in language skills may not be driven by caregivers talking more or differently to girls than to boys. Instead, babies’ first words led to significant changes in what they heard: Caregivers talked more to talkers. Remember, girls tend to start talking earlier and have larger vocabularies than boys. That means that while it may look like caregivers talk more to girls than to boys, they are really talking to talkers more than to non-talkers.

Photo: William Fortunato. Pexels.

We still do not know why baby girls have bigger vocabularies than baby boys. Perhaps this difference in language skills is driven by other differences in parents’ behavior, like touch or eye contact. Alternatively, biological differences may explain girls’ language advantage. For example, some research suggests that infants’ levels of sex hormones influence brain development in language-related regions. Researchers need to investigate these possibilities.

How can parents support their children’s early language development?

Our study found that girls’ vocabulary advantage might not be the result of gendered differences in caregivers’ speech to their babies. Instead, we discovered that babies’ language environments change when they start talking.

What does that mean for parents? The results of our study show that children play an active role in their language development – they influence their own language learning environments as they grow by engaging in conversation with their caregivers. However, caregivers also play a critical role. To support their children’s language development, caregivers can talk with and be responsive to their children, regardless of the children’s gender.

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This experiment, conducted in Canada, confirmed the importance of singing to babies and the positive effects that familiar songs have on them.

Singing familiar songs to a distressed baby brings comfort—more so than unfamiliar songs or expressive talking. Thus singing to babies plays an important role in creating the parent-child relationship. A repertoire of familiar songs sung together can be a source of comfort in moments of distress.

In an experiment conducted in Canada, 136 babies aged eight or 10 months were videoed as a parent provided comfort by singing a familiar song, singing an unfamiliar song or talking expressively. Each parent was asked to play with the child for two minutes, then present a blank face to the child (the “still face procedure”) for one minute (or less if the child started getting really upset), then reunite with the child for two minutes by means of singing or speaking.

The video recordings showed that, particularly in the first 30 seconds, the babies paid more attention to the parent, smiled more and showed less distress (e.g. crying, frowning, frustration) when the parent sang a song that was familiar. Second best was an unfamiliar song, and least effective was speaking, even with much expression.

The researchers also tested skin conductance, a measure of the babies’ stress levels. The “still face” procedure increases stress in babies, and their skin conductance rises. By this measure, talking was least effective in reducing stress levels, an unfamiliar song was the most effective, and a familiar song was somewhere in between. This result presumably occurred because in addition to being reassuring, a familiar song also excites the baby (but in a positive way).

Making sounds in response to an infant’s distress is a common response as a supplement to physical closeness—and not just in humans. Singing to infants is a universal human practice. Typically, songs are more stable in pitch level and tempo, whilst speech is highly variable in form and content. Similarly, using music as a source of comfort is a universal human characteristic at all ages. Toddlers typically sing spontaneously when playing alone or going to sleep on their own.

Infants are surprisingly good at remembering tunes. Newborns respond to music they heard while in the womb. Two-month-olds recognise tunes. At six months, a baby will respond to a familiar tune even when it’s presented at a different pitch. Both adults and children remember a tune better if they sing it (tra la la) rather than just listen to it played on an instrument.

Familiar songs have a particular social significance for infants. Five-month-olds look longer at a stranger if she sings a familiar song rather than an unfamiliar song (as in the experiment reported here), but only when they learned the song from their mother, and not when they learned it from a toy.

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Both the mother’s and father’s mind-mindedness when a baby is four months and 12 months old influence the way the baby manages emotions at 12 months.

A new study has found that how well a baby manages emotions is influenced not only by the quality of parenting but even more so by the mother’s and father’s “mind-mindedness” – the ability to manage the physical and emotional states of their baby – during the first year.

In the early years, children are hugely dependent on their parents’ ability to help them manage their emotions. Mind-mindedness is assessed by observing whether parents respond appropriately or inappropriately to their child’s emotions during free-play interactions. A key question is how a parent names different emotions that the child experiences, enabling the child to recognise and manage them better. For example, when a child becomes overstimulated in a game –turning away from the caregiver, tuning out or having frantic moments – a mind-minded parent accurately understands the signal and responds appropriately by pausing the game and enabling the child to recover. When such responses are repeated many times, children learn from their parents how to manage their own emotions.

Earlier research has found that mind-mindedness is linked to secure parent-child attachment, which is in turn linked to children’s ability to depend on parents’ responding appropriately to emotional cues. So, for example, if a child becomes angry or fearful, this emotion becomes associated with a parent’s helpful response. The child can learn to trust that arousal with the parent present will not lead to disruption that goes beyond his or her ability to cope.

The researchers, led by Moniek Zeegers at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education in the Netherlands,  measured emotion regulation via “high-frequency heart rate variation” (HRV) – the variation in duration between subsequent heartbeats. Previous research has shown two things. First, a higher baseline HRV in toddlers is related to better regulation of emotions, as well as a more general alertness and responsiveness to the environment. Second, in a socially stressful situation, such as meeting a stranger or encountering a non-responsive face, HRV goes down; a larger drop is associated with stronger coping with the challenging situation.

The researchers found that mind-mindedness in both mothers and fathers is linked to improved emotion regulation in 12-month-old babies. But they also found differences between mothers and fathers in how mind-mindedness influences children.

For mothers, stronger mind-mindedness when the baby was 4 months old predicted more positive HRV in the baby at 12 months (higher baseline, more decline in a situation with a stranger). For fathers, there was no such link, but there was a link between a father’s mind-mindedness later, at 12 months, and HRV (both measures) at 12 months. This may reflect the fact that mothers tend to be more involved in caring for infants earlier on, so the mother’s influence displays itself earlier, on average.

The researchers found that the baby’s heart rate variation at four months did not predict a parent’s mind-mindedness at 12 months. Judging by other research, the child’s temperament would be expected to influence parenting, but perhaps in the case of a child’s ability to regulate emotions, this influence takes more than one year to exhibit itself.

The researchers found that measures of mind-mindedness and measures of parenting quality at 12 months correlated for fathers, but not for mothers. They were not able to explain this finding; they suggest that the problem might be the rather coarse measure of parenting quality used in the research.

Zeegers and her team recommend looking further at the longer-term influence of parental mind-mindedness on child cognitive and social development. Other research projects have started to show links between parental mind-mindedness and a child’s ability to interpret other people’s behavior. Maternal mind-mindedness predicts a child’s better working memory at 18 months and better management of conflict and impulses at 26 months. Paternal mind-mindedness predicts a child’s ability to control impulses at 18 months.

Another aspect that needs further work is how mothers’ and fathers’ mind-mindedness interact with each other during coparenting. In coparenting, one parent can strengthen or compensate for the other, so their influences become mixed.

This study took place in the Netherlands and involved 116 mothers and fathers, with measurements at four months and 12 months. The data were drawn from a larger, longer-term longitudinal program. The research is unusual in that it measures both mothers and fathers.

Mind-mindedness was measured at four months by recording a five-minute parent-child free play session. At 12 months, the session lasted 10 minutes. All the comments by the parents were classified as either being directed at the child’s mental state or not. If so, the statements were categorized as cognitions (e.g., “you remembered this from the zoo”), likes and dislikes (e.g. “you don’t like this rattle”) or emotions (e.g., “you’re all excited to play with these toys”). After this, each comment was coded as ‘appropriate’ or ‘non-attuned’ to the child’s mental state.

The heart rate variation was measured at baseline and then in a stranger situation – an unfamiliar man approaches the baby when sitting in front of the mother, talks to the baby for 30 seconds, and then picks the baby up for 30 seconds.

Parental quality was measured at 12 months by observing the play session and scoring for parental responsiveness, intrusiveness, warmth and negativity.

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