Babies Know Ep 3 - Three months to two years

In our final podcast episode in this series, we recap the journey from conception and early bonding to the unfolding of the baby’s first motor milestones.  We explore how spontaneous movements before and after birth help shape the baby's developing brain, their understanding of their body and their surroundings and the simple effective ways that parents and caregivers can support healthy growth during this time.

Peter Walker is an internationally accredited and widely respected teacher of Developmental Baby Massage who has pioneered the practise of Developmental Baby Massage for babies and children and has been working with mothers and babies for over 45 years.  Throughout this period working with thousands of mothers and babies and teachers , Peter has developed a range of unique techniques and specialises in teacher training groups and working with all babies including one to one online sessions with mothers whose babies are navigating developmental delay.

Jenna Rutherford is an experienced birth and postnatal doula and mother of three.  Jenna's youngest son, Jude, has Down Syndrome and worked extensively with Peter in Jude's early years to support his development through his developmental delay clinic.  Jenna is passionate about supporting families to thrive in the early years with a special interest in families whose children have additional needs.

You can get in touch with Peter via email

walker@thebabieswebsite.com

and via his website

www.thebabieswebsite.com

You can find Jenna on instagram @jenna_andjude

and contact her via email at 

jennarutherford13@gmail.com

Thanks for listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

So, hello and welcome back to the final episode in our three-part series on the first 1001 Critical Days of Development from Conception to Walking. I am once again joined by a wonderful doula and my dear friend Jenna Rutherford. And today we'll be exploring something subtle yet deeply powerful. The relationship between touch and movement and motility. The child's inner rhythm that supports emotional security, physical confidence, and their healthy development.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Hi Peter, and thank you for that lovely introduction. It's great to be chatting with you again. Absolutely. I'm so excited about this episode. I think it's really, really powerful. And something that, you know, you helping me get Jude on his feet was one of the greatest gifts, literally, of his life. And we are so grateful for all your expertise. And I'm just really glad these conversations are going to be reaching more parents.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Thank you, Jenna. Let's begin with a brief recap. In podcast one, we explored the two neural pathways of touch and proprioception. Touch is from the outside, external feeling, and internal feeling proprioception. And these two lay secure foundations for bonding and emotional security. And that's easy to see following birth where touch stroking, rocking, and responsive care continue to reinforce that reassuring message from within I am here by perception, and from without touch I am not alone. In podcast two we explored how before language, logic, touch, rhythm and connection, how all of these shape the child's early experience of themselves and the world around them. And today we move deeper into the baby's internal rhythm. That's called motility. It's a subtle, harmonious pulse that supports the smooth development of movement and emotional flow. It's a core feeling that opens us towards life. Healthy development depends on the coordination of breathing, feeding, sleeping and movement, and of course emotional connection. And it's through compassionate, attentive caregiving that babies gradually develop steadier rhythms within their body and their emotions. This process is known as co-regulation, and it only occurs when the caregiver helps the baby to regulate emotional and physiological states and laying the foundation for self-regulation in time as the child matures. It's almost like weaning, it just can't be done overnight. And when babies experience this consistent patterns of love, care, comfort, movement, rest, that emotional connection, they begin to develop a deep sense of safety and calm. And it's from this secure place of relaxation, primal relaxation that they can come out into the world and explore and then return when they need to. Like an inner music, motility supports the child's outward dance of movement and development, and the loving touch and attentive caregiving help regulate these rhythms and allow independence and confidence to emerge gradually and securely. It's through touch movement and responsive care babies develop that inner foundation of calm, a place they leave and return to, which we all do throughout our life. A supportive touch gently regulates the child's nervous system and builds resilience from within. It becomes a quiet reassurance in the child's unfamiliar world, that reassurance going, I am here and I am not alone.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Ah, Peter, that's beautiful. So this motility is what gives children that physical confidence, their agility, and their autonomy, and how they know they can move in the world. I think that's really fascinating, especially because it all stems from, you know, quite simply a loving touch. I just love it. I know with all my babies, I did try to be a very responsive parent. I did hold them a lot, and I often, you know, got the looks and the comments and things because they were always in my arms. I slung them all the time, I co-slept with them, and they are all really, really physical kids. So for me, this really matches up that that kind of secure touch enables that mentality. And I think a calm nervous system through that touch really enables their movement in the world. Then they can reach out from a safe place, which is wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Wonderful. Yes, exactly. Touch is the first language. Beyond words or thought, the child's body is listening, and through breath, sensation, rhythm, and emotional connection, touch comes first. Skin to skin contact helps regulate breathing, heart rate, temperature, the nervous system, rocking, holding and stroking all reinforce that deep sense of safety and belonging following birth. Attentive parenting supports the baby's moves in and out of a secure state. This helps the child build the resilience they need to meet these changes without becoming overwhelmed or locked into a pattern of stress.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, and you can you can really see how babies respond to the emotional state of the people caring for them. And I think when we're feeling calm and regulated, they really sense that too. I mean, babies are such sensory beings, aren't they? And I think, of course, staying regulated as parents is never easy, which is why good support matters so much. And having people around you who can help, even for just short breaks, can make such a difference for parents and babies.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Absolutely. The mother and child relationship is deeply symbiotic. And when we talk about the importance of the first 1001 days for children, we must also recognise how important this period is for mothers. Supporting mothers during this vital period from conception to two years of age is a huge part of supporting babies. As babies begin reaching, grasping, rolling, sitting, crawling, and eventually standing, these aren't just physical milestones, they reflect brain development in action, and all of this happens far easier if the child lives relatively without stress. Movement and cognition, body and brain grow together. Movement helps the brain organize itself by strengthening the neural pathways that support coordination, learning, memory, and problem solving. This is from a really early age. When a baby crawls for example, they're developing spatial awareness, balance, coordination, and brain processing, cognitive development all at once. This is one of the reasons why all the baby's motor milestones are important. Together with free movement, exploration, and ample time to practice one skill before moving on to the next.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, I remember Jude crawled for a really long time, nearly a year, from sort of one year old to two year old. And you always were so reassuring, and you were like, There's no rush, he's just writing those pathways. And it and it worked beautifully, and his foundations became so strong. So once you know he was on his feet, he was just really confident.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Absolutely. And especially if there's any sign of hypotonia or developmental delay, um, those foundations, of course, are so important. Motor skills are expressed through the body, cognitive skills are processed through the baby's brain, and the two continually shape one another. And that's what we know as neural integration. Movement strengthens the baby's sensory processing, their ability to organise, respond to touch, balance, sound, sight, and body awareness. That's why the benefits also of a baby massage routine that includes motor milestones has such a huge advantage. Motor milestones like rolling, crawling and sitting rely upon and support development of the brain. So movement isn't just activity, it's body brain synchronicity and it's how the brain learns to make sense of the body and the world around it. Gentle massage and mobility based play can help support flexibility, coordination, body awareness and of course brain body communication. Most importantly, we shift the focus away from how quickly the baby develops towards how well they develop. Movement strengthens movement and supports cognitive development. And as babies learn to reach, roll, crawl and grasp, they begin developing early problem solving skills. They figure out how to move their bodies to interact with the world around them. And these repeated mobile movement experiences help build coordination, confidence and of course independence. Through proprioception, that's our body's sense of our position and movement in space. It's our inner feelings of our body, and we move our body with proprioception without having to think about where and how we move it. Two, it's I am. And the brain and body work together to strengthen those neural pathways involved for the child in motor control, balance, attention, and learning. Again, this neural integration develops through free movement, exploration and being given ample time to practice. Sensory processing is the baby's brain's ability to receive, organize and respond to information from the senses, and proprioception, our feeling of ourselves from within plays a central role in this process because movement helps babies understand where their bodies are in space. As babies move, they naturally develop the awareness of touch, balance, distance, coordination, and cause and effect of relationships. Movement also stimulates areas of the brain connected to focus, memory, and learning. For example, when a baby learns to crawl, they're doing far more than simply moving from one place to another. They're developing spatial awareness by planning a path, learning distance and coordination as they adjust their body in space, strengthening balance and body control, and exploring their environment through active problem solving. All these experiences show how closely motor development and cognitive development are connected.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah, I think it's so important to understand how the movement aids the cognitive development, how the body and the brain work together, because I do think that is quite misunderstood. And that's why it was so important to help Judah thrive by giving him the best physicality he could, so that he was also getting the best neural pathways that would be written. And um, and it came up recently because I was told that even though he's got his speech delay, I was told by his speech therapist recently that his language is really strong, like he's got an incredibly good understanding for a child with Low syndrome, and even though he hasn't got his speech yet, his understanding is there. And when I heard that, it made me think about his crawling because I was thinking, you know, just all those pathways that he's writing. But what was important with that as well is that all his movement has come from him. Because of the way we've worked together, you have always encouraged me to not use anything but his ability and his body. So he's in control, he's you know, got his own autonomy with his movement, and he gets to decide how and when he moves on. So there was no rushing, and then everything he did came from within. So he has that, you know, this is me, I am, because it was coming from inside him. It wasn't coming from an outward force or an outward piece of furniture or whatever it was, it was all from within, which I think was again incredibly powerful.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yes, I think this is where we need to just step back and give children a little bit more time. If they want that, to practice the motor skills, wherever they are, because you can't force it. If you rush them, it's not a good idea. Proprioception happens when the muscles are relaxed and you're enabling the child, you're teaching the child something from touch from the outside, which they have to accept from within. And if they resist, their muscles tighten and their belly tightens, and uh that's not a good idea. So, what I'm saying is uh simply what you said, you know, that I think the the reason why Jude has um such strong roots and is making the most of his motor skills are because he had ample time to practice and we never forced anything, and we encouraged him in his own way to crawl, stand on his knees, slowly get up on his feet, walk sideways around furniture and all those simple modus skills when they're developed in the right order, they then the cognitive skills they're processed in the brain and continue to develop smoothly. Uh it's giving the child and encouraging the child to practice and move forward in their own time, and showing them, of course, how to do this, giving them the best uh possible way, showing them through the best possible way, and and enabling them to do this from touch, from gentle massage movement, helping the baby to sit, helping the baby go on their tummy, and so on and so forth. Movement helps build and organize the brain. The brain refines and coordinates movement through neural integration. Neural integration also supports sensory processing. The brain's ability to interpret and respond to information from the senses, including touch, taste, sight, sound, smell, proprioception and balance. Sensory processing shapes how a child experiences and understands their world. The sensory experience directly influence how children feel, cope, learn, and connect with others. From around three months onwards, as the babies begin progressing now through important motor milestones, the benefits of a developmental baby massage program or a baby massage program that includes motor milestone education and enablement, this becomes increasingly noticeable. At this stage, babies are becoming more active, aware of their bodies and responsive to movement based interaction and support. Flexibility develops before strength and coordination. However, some babies may experience differences in muscle tone. Some babies who are hypotonic have a low muscle tone, making their movements appear weak or less coordinated, while some babies who are hypertonic have muscles that can feel unusually and you can see that they're tight. Through massage and mobility based play and knowing the direction of the motor milestones. So for example, if a baby can't sit looking at the milestones before that that enable sitting, babies are supported if we do this in a developing foundational movement. And these sensory skills that help will strengthen brain body communication, improve body awareness, coordination and a healthy motor development. This encourages confident exploration and social engagement and we help reduce the risk of developmental delay by reinforcing early movement patterns in the right order and giving the child time to learn that pattern before moving on to the next. Most importantly, we shift their focus away from how quickly a baby reaches their motor milestones and far more toward how well they develop those skills. And this is of huge importance to those babies who are subjected to or with a diagnosis or prognosis of developmental delay.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah, absolutely. I think taking my time with Jude made the biggest difference. And he was still on his feet by two years old, which is amazing for a child with Down syndrome. And we built, you know, strong foundations. And I remember he took a while to get his head control in the beginning, and you were like, be patient, be patient, he'll get it, he'll get it. Which I think again is what you really helped me with. It was just simply trusting him, trusting him that he would get it. And then suddenly, after he got his head control, he sat quite quickly, and then he was crawling quite quickly after that. So it kind of all came together for him. But it was from the right place. It was his knowing from his body, and that's a huge gift.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yes. Yes, and that's one we can help all children with a little patience. And um the message for the baby is my body is a safe place to be. I can I can trust myself, and this early sense of physical and emotional safety then becomes a foundation for emotional regulation. Resilience, healthy attachment, and lifelong learning, even later in adult life. You know, I worked with I've worked around many psychotherapists and my one of my teachers, 10 years ago, wonderful uh psychiatrist uh R. D. Lang, these practices such as breath work, somatic therapy, psychotherapy, psychiatry, they often aim to restore the sense of safety regulation and body awareness that perhaps we didn't get, or somewhere we missed that, that nurture in touch and responsive care that is established in infancy and childhood. A key concept connected to this is primal relaxation, and that's that deep instinctive state of calm in which the body feels safe, supported, and regulated. It's not simply an absence of stress, it's a return to the body's natural state of balance and ease. And I'm sure we all experience it if only briefly at different times during our lives. And it's like returning home. It's supported for babies by loving attentive touch, and it's the activation of the vagus nerve, which is also known as the nerve of light or lightness, and the parasympathetic nervous system, which encourages healthy diaphragmatic breathing. Healthy babies naturally breathe deeply with soft bellies and gently expanding ribs. This style of breathing supports oxygen flow, relaxation, emotional reassurance, healthy sleep patterns. When this natural state of relaxation is disrupted through stress, tension, physical strain, could be pre-during or following birth, gentle massage movement and responsive caregiving can support this relaxation, this feeling of comfort, body awareness, and will help the child to regulate.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah, I can I can really relate to this. You mentioned somatics and that feeling of trying to ground ourselves. I mean, I've been going through a difficult time with, you know, a divorce and things like that. And I've had to my grounding practices for sure to support my own vagus nerve like regulation. And I think you can see it in these babies, they they can be so naturally calm in their nervous systems with the right touch. And you know, it all starts there. And if we can, you know, find ways to love ourselves and look after ourselves and feel calm, all that calm is passed on to the babies through touch, which you know it's magic.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Absolutely. Touch is magic. From life in the womb onward, the baby's body responds to and adapts to intrauterine and birth experiences. At times, stress or physical strain can contribute towards protective patterns of tension within the body. Some practitioners describe these patterns as we've said as somatic imprints, which, if they're not relieved, then can become muscular armorin that can follow us into the world. In babies these patterns may appear as subtle holding, stiffness, asymmetry or just general discomfort, baby unhappy, even though they're fed, they're kept warm, given an ample touch and so forth, they're still unhappy. And there's always a reason for babies crying. They don't cry to upset us. And if these tension patterns persist over time, they then can become, as I say, it's like a muscular armoring that influence posture, movement, comfort, and emotional regulation in later adult life. It's through nurturing therapeutic touch, gentle movement and responsive interaction that our babies can be supported in release intention and developing a greater comfort and feeling a feeling of ease and body awareness. Early support in this way can help prevent these patterns from becoming more deeply established over time. Again, the underlying message for the baby is I'm safe, I can relax, I'm in good hands. And this connects closely with the other important concepts of proprioception. And that's the baby's bodily feeling of internal ease of position and movement in space, the one that allows us to move, balance, reach, grasp, coordinate our bodies naturally and without conscious thought or effort. Babies develop proprioception through free movement and play, touch, physical interaction, and movement experiences such as pushing, pulling, stretching, rolling, crawling, climbing. These experiences all help build body awareness, coordination, posture, balance, and all the foundations for future learning and self-confidence.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, absolutely. A child who can move is a child who can play, and playing is definitely the best way to learn.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Absolutely. I totally agree with you. From conception, the pathways that support bonding begin to form. Around eight weeks in the womb, the baby starts developing that internal sense of self, I am. Alongside the comforting wareness of connection through touch, I am not alone. These systems grow and respond together, laying the foundations of emotional security, sensory awareness and relationship development. From birth, the rhythmic sense or pulse of motility and innate intelligence within the body responds to relaxation, calm and nurturing contact. This primal rhythm becomes the foundation for all future movement, mobility and physical coordination. From around three months, the strengthening and integration of the baby's magical milestones begin to unfold. As babies gradually develop head and neck control coordination, balance and the ability to move forward towards standing and walking. When touch, movement, breath, and awareness are brought together, something deeply powerful is created. And developmental baby massage our baby massage and movement becomes far more than just a soothing ritual. It's a tool for nervous system development, a guide for healthy milestone achievement and a pathway to emotional resilience. It's a foundation for lifelong well being. Most importantly, it invites parents and caregivers to move or dance in harmony with the child, to connect, respond, communicate and grow together through a loving presence and touch.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Ah, Peter, I love this. And it also I think invites and encourages mothers to look after themselves because in looking after themselves they can feel happier and calmer, which is all going to spread through their children and then bolster them to grow and learn, and also an invitation to society to look after mothers for sure. Peter, thank you so much. You're an absolute gift to mothers and babies, and your skills and knowledge are completely invaluable, and it's just such a pleasure to sit here with you and uh have you share all this wonderful wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Thanks, Jenna. And I also have enjoyed every minute of doing these podcasts with you. Over the past 50 years, I've learned so much by observing how mothers like yourself relate to their babies and children. Above all, one truth remains constant. Children need their mothers, and mothers themselves need understanding, encouragement, and strong support. Those first 1001 critical days, from birth to the age of two, are the most critical in a child's development. Where mothers are genuinely supported during this time, the impact can be profound, not only for child health and emotional well being, but also for perinatal mental health and the future strength of our families and communities. If we truly want healthier, happier children, we must begin by caring for and supporting the mothers who nurture them from the very start of life, a time when the foundations of physiological, physical, and emotional development are laid.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yeah, couldn't agree more, Peter, as always. Thank you.