Dan Wuori: Relationships between parents and babies is the greatest love story of all 

“Mom’s heartbeat, the tones of her voice, the rhythm and patterns of her native language, are the first sounds we’re ever exposed to as humans. And that is the beginning of such a special relationship,” says Wuori, an early childhood educator and policy consultant, who has worked alongside governors and state legislators in the US to improve early years policy.

Wuori will be the guest speaker at an event collaboratively hosted by the Irish Play Therapy Association (IPTA), Let's Grow Together, and the Irish Association for Infant Mental Health (I-AIMH). Billed as an interactive, positive event for Valentine's Day, it wants to highlight "the magic" of nurturing interactions in adult-baby relationships.

IAIMM director Sharon Byrne says: “Together, we can deepen understanding of how love, connection and responsive caregiving lay the foundation for lifelong wellbeing.” 

And a Let’s Grow Together spokesperson is looking forward to understanding “the magic that happens when an adult and child interact with one another”.

To parents around the world, Wuori is known for his innovative use of social media to educate about infants and toddlers – he has more than a quarter million followers (across platforms) tuning in to his daily video child-development lessons. These typically feature adorable babies and toddlers caught in rich interactions with parents and caregivers.

A recent post highlighted a baby’s growing self-awareness, capturing him laughing uproariously at himself in the mirror, while another featured a newborn and his mother in a minutes-long, highly engaged, babbling conversation.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner last Friday, as he was making his way home in North Carolina, Wuori says babies come into the world well-equipped to be connected to the special people in their lives. “They already recognise voices, certainly their mother’s, and – as hearing becomes more dialled-in towards the end of gestation — they’re also exposed to other significant voices in their environment: their father’s, siblings’.

“And what also happens biologically and chemically, both for parents and babies, is oxytocin is produced in the pituitary gland — the love hormone — which helps promote the bond and feelings of affection. Parents are flooded with oxytocin — and it releases in the newborn’s brain as they have skin-to-skin contact with parents.”

Learning begins in utero and never stops

With his talk this weekend promising “an insight into the science created in moments of attachment and love”, Wuori says the earliest years and months of a child’s life are such an important time. “Really critical for the creation of secure attachment, that special relationship between babies and parents. If formed well, it undergirds the child’s mental health for decades to come.”

Wuori explains that between 24 and 26 weeks gestation, some important brain wiring occurs. “The five senses start to activate. The thalamus, responsible for receiving all the data we get from our senses, transmits to the cerebral cortex of the brain. These two parts of the brain start to wire together. It’s widely believed to be the beginning of consciousness.”

He points to a Finnish study that found babies exposed to the lullaby ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ during pregnancy showed signs of remembering it up to four months after birth. “And there are multiple examples of newborns already recognising and preferring their mother’s voice. Hearing it, their heart-rate accelerates, which shows interest. When a recording of a stranger’s voice is played, the opposite happens.”

Knowing babies are learning in very basic ways even when in utero should influence how we interact with them, says Wuori. Reflecting that many parents find the idea of reading to a very young baby odd, he says: “They’re not giving full credit to how much babies are soaking up. Newborns are expert, super keen observers of adult lives. It’s like they’re on apprenticeship. They’re watching our faces, assessing our mood and gauging whether they’re safe.

“Babies also learn language face-to-face. We think of it as a hearing activity but it’s very visual. Babies are watching how our mouths are moving to make these wonderful sounds. So the message to parents is: learning begins in utero and never stops.”

Face-to-face contact with highly engaged adults

Wuori’s book, The Daycare Myth: What We Get Wrong About Early Care and Education (and What We Should Do About It), was published last September. Working a lot with US-based policymakers, he frequently hears a comment that for him belies a myth. “I hear all the time — ‘we want children to come to kindergarten ready to learn’ — as if learning begins at age five. We now know children are learning [from the very start].”

Babies and young toddlers, says Wuori, “just eat up” opportunities to bond with us and to learn from us — and science underpins this. “The period from prenatal to three years is a uniquely consequential window in human development during which the fundamental architecture of the brain is laid down for the child’s future success.

“And the way the brain develops is very much optimised through stable nurturing relationships and face-to-face contact with highly engaged adults. It’s a wonderful reminder, even when children are at an age we think too young to understand words, that we need to be mindful of our language, tone of voice, and how much attention we’re paying to our cell-phone or TV.”

To enhance and enrich adult-baby interactions, Wuori recommends:

• Serve-and-return: “Very much like tennis, hitting the ball back-and-forth between baby and parent – up close, face-to-face interactions, you’re making eye-contact, mimicking your baby’s vocalisations, talking back-and-forth, having a conversation with your baby.”
• Narrate your day. “Spend time explaining what you’re doing. It doesn’t have to be some big educational lesson — more like ‘now we’re folding the laundry. Look at this sheet — it’s red. I’m going to fold it up, and we’re going to put it in the basket’. Exposing the child to a wide variety of language is constantly activating the newborn brain.”
• Don’t overlook the value of reading, even to very young children. “Books help expose children to a very much wider vocabulary than might be the case in our everyday lives. If Dad’s reading a book about animals, making all the different sounds, the child’s now hearing new words [beyond] their day-to-day experience.”
• Expose your child to new sensory experiences — this doesn’t have to be costly, exotic or distant. “Get out of the house, expose your baby to new places, sights, smells — there’s so much to talk about at the grocery store, the library, in the park.”

Wuori wants parents and caregivers to look at child-development through new eyes. He suggests, for example, taking a more flexible view when toddlers are engaged in what might be considered ‘terrible twos’ behaviour. 

Describing “a wonderful video” he shared, he says: “Mom and baby are sitting together, baby’s in a high chair, mom’s beside him. Baby’s repeatedly taking his toy and throwing it onto the floor. Each time, the mom bends, picks it up and returns it to him. But each time the child is watching very carefully the toy falling to the floor. He’s testing out, learning about gravity — he’s fascinated.”

While a parent might be tempted to say, ‘I need to take this toy away from you if you’re going to keep throwing it’, Wuori encourages thinking with more flexibility. “Many toddler behaviours may not be naughty — but instead mean the child’s using their senses, their expanding understanding, to explore the world.”

A dad-of-two, Wuori knows parenting young children doesn’t come with a manual. He and his wife were kindergarten teachers when their now young adult children were born. “Everyone who’s a first-time parent is just that. Whether you’re a teacher or paediatrician, until you’ve been charged with caring 24 hours a day for a newborn, you haven’t.”

It is reassuring to know the simplest yet most beautiful human interactions you have with your baby are the ones that will make such a tremendous difference. As non-directive play therapist and member of IPTA Anne Fenton puts it: “Dan Wuori’s observations highlight how the smallest interaction can develop relationships and nurture connections.”

• The Science of Love, City Hall, Cork, February 14, 12.30-4pm. To book, see: exa.mn/Science-Of-Love