The power of ‘being with’: Building relationships, trust and care with babies

Humans are hard-wired for connection. For babies, relationships are the anchor helping them to feel safe and secure as they begin to navigate the world.

At Adamstown Community Early Learning and Preschool, where six babies per day are enrolled in the Explorers Room, educators deliberately slow everything down to focus on attachment, emotional safety and responsive care.

Director Kelly West explains that the program is grounded in attachment research and a belief that babies are competent, curious explorers.

“The reason we called the space the Explorers Room is because babies are developing neural pathways for exploration from birth,” says Kelly. “They are natural explorers of everything.”

From this perspective, relationships are not something to establish before learning begins; they are the very means by which infants can safely explore their world.

“It’s so important with those babies, because the only mechanism that they have physiologically that allows them to explore their world safely is their relationships,” says Kelly. “They're so vulnerable that developmentally they seek relationships before they seek exploration.”

The service also prioritises strong relationships with families to help them feel safe and comfortable about leaving their baby in care. This involves educators making time for consistent, empathic conversations with parents about their baby’s experiences and routines.

A dedicated season for settling

Each year, the first six to eight weeks of the Explorers Room program are intentionally structured around relationship-building rather than rushing into routines or activities. With all infants (aged 6 weeks to 2 years) starting at the beginning of the year, the team treats January as a settling-in season.

“We focus the first six to eight weeks of the year on developing relationships with the children and getting to know their individual routines, and establishing that reciprocal strong attachment,” Kelly explains.

The approach reflects Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the understanding that children’s emotional safety and sense of belonging must be nurtured before higher-order learning can flourish.

“Because if you focus on relationships first, a baby’s separation is so much quicker from their families, there's less distress, there's less cortisol in their system. Then you see enhanced learning, because you've taken that time to put everything else aside and just be with the children.”

The impact is tangible. By February, relationships are firmly established and the babies are settled.

“It doesn't take long to develop trust with children if you take the time to be with them,” says Kelly.

‘Being with’ instead of distracting

A key idea shaping practice in the Explorers Room is Circle of Security’s concept of ‘being with’. All educators in the space are trained in this approach.

Rather than distracting babies from crying or trying to ‘fix’ big feelings, educators stay close, calm and emotionally available.

“I know it's a common practice for people to want to distract children; to get toys in front of them, to stop them from crying, but actually the research shows that we should be doing the opposite,” says Kelly.

“You need to sit with children while they're distressed and ‘be with’ them in a way that they know that they're safe to feel what they're feeling.”

Kelly describes ‘being with’ as psychological availability, or slow pedagogy, rather than a specific technique. This validating stance communicates to babies that even in distress, they remain safe, supported and protected.

“They settle in so much quicker because they think, ‘Even in my distress, you protected me, I felt safe.’”

Small numbers, deep knowing

Relational work at Adamstown is underpinned by small group sizes and consistency of staff, allowing educators to get to know each child deeply: their cues, preferences, triggers and ways of self-regulating.

Educators come together in weekly team meetings to discuss their inquiry-based project or reflect if they notice a child is struggling. Education Leader Katie Carrington describes one example, whereby a baby became distressed whenever the group moved indoors just before sleep time.

“We reflected on this, and thought ‘what is it that's upsetting him, and how can we make that transition a bit smoother for him?’” recalls Katie.

The solution was simple but powerful: adapt the routine around the child’s needs and move lunch outside, helping them feel more regulated before transitioning to sleep.

“Children don’t fit a particular mould,” Kelly reflects. “Babies, especially, cannot do that. The routine needs to be dictated by individual needs.”

Grounded in the Reggio Emilia Approach and the paramount consideration of children, the team believes that pedagogy should be informed by a child’s experience, not the other way around. It’s a matter of taking the time to listen and validate.

Or as renowned RIE founder and child therapist Magda Gerber put it: to “do less; observe more; enjoy most.”