Can Babies Have Mental Health Problems? What Every Parent Should Know

Can babies and young children experience mental health challenges?

Many parents assume mental health is something that only affects teenagers and adults. But emotional wellbeing begins much earlier—starting in infancy.

In this episode of Healthy Beginnings, Dr. Edgar Kalimba explores children's mental health and emotional development, helping parents understand how early experiences shape emotional wellbeing, behavior, resilience, and long-term mental health.

We discuss how to distinguish normal childhood behavior from signs of distress, the impact of early stress and trauma on developing brains, and practical ways parents can support their children's emotional health from the very beginning.

In this episode we discuss:

• Can babies and young children experience mental health challenges?
 • What emotional wellbeing looks like in infancy and early childhood
 • How early experiences influence brain development
 • When tantrums are normal—and when they may signal distress
 • Warning signs parents should pay attention to
 • Whether trauma affects children who are "too young to remember"
 • Why children's mental health is often overlooked
 • The role of culture and stigma in mental health conversations
 • How parents can build emotional security and resilience at home

Mental health is not just about illness. It's about helping children feel safe, supported, connected, and able to thrive.

Healthy Beginnings offers clear and evidence-based conversations about children’s health, family wellbeing, and the systems that shape our lives. 

New episodes every Monday 

Have a question? Email: healthybeginningspodcast@gmail.com

Produced by LF Media

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Did you know that mental health and emotional problems that are manifested during adulthood, things like substance use and abuse, aggression, self-harm, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, and many other severe mental health issues, often start very early during childhood. Today I would like to discuss issues around mental health during childhood and emotional development. This topic is very important and I realize that very often when we refer to mental health, people immediately think about teenagers and adolescents, adults, or think about things like depression and anxiety. But really, mental health doesn't suddenly begin during adolescence. Mental health and emotional health generally starts very early during life. The most important foundations for emotional well-being are practically laid during infancy and early childhood. The very, very, very early weeks and months of life. And what I want to have a conversation around today is questions around babies and young children experiencing mental and emotional challenges, how they shape emotional well-being in general, all these early experiences. And also to try and tease out when is your child's behavior a normal phase of growth or an early warning sign? There's things like trauma. How does trauma, different forms of trauma, affect children, even if they won't remember it? And what can parents do to support healthy emotional development? So a common misconception is in courts, my baby is too young to have mental health issues. The truth is that while babies do not experience mental health conditions in the same way as adults do, they absolutely experience emotional well-being or the opposite. So mental health in young children is not about diagnosing depression or the way we approach it in adolescents and adults. Instead, it's often about feeling safe, forming healthy attachments, and learning to regulate emotions in general. Things like developing trust and building resilience. These are all components of what we would refer to as mental or emotional health in young children. And if I would sum it up, I would say that the capacity of a child to form secure relationships, experience emotions, and explore the environment and learn appropriately really captures what we would refer to as infant and childhood mental health. So a baby's mental health really develops through relationships. And every time a caregiver responds to crying or provides comfort, when as a parent, you are making eye contact with your child and you're talking to them and you're making time to play and interact with them. These are some of the common, simple key components of how your baby's brain is learning that actually the world is safe, people can be trusted, and my needs matter. So these are the earliest building blocks of emotional health. Now, of course, we all know that the first 1000 days, which includes the pregnancy period all the way to around the second birthday of a child, the brain of your child develops more rapidly than any other time in their life. And we often refer to these brain connections that are happening, that are developing, what we refer to as neural connections, are forming every single day. And positive experiences help build healthy brain architecture, if I may put it that way. And examples include loving interactions. You know, when a child feels loved, they feel that the adults and the caretakers really take time to love on them. Consistent caregiving, not confusion, not abuse, but consistence in caregiving, and also what we refer to as responsive parenting, actually responding appropriately and emotionally to your child's needs. Something that is often not given enough attention, or I would say underestimated, is play because our children learn through play. So making time to play, to have age-appropriate games and time to explore, to play, is very important. Something else that is important is reading and talking to your child. Now, of course, with the current realities of life where we as parents have to work sometimes impossible hours, long hours, maybe you're out of town often, really can rob us of that precious time. But with some intentionality, with really making it a point, there's always opportunities for play, for reading, reading together, reading stories that are age appropriate, and spending time talking to your child and help them to learn and grow and improve their vocabulary and so on and so forth. So all these experiences really help to develop emotional regulation, learning, social skills, very important, and confidence. And sometimes we really uh blame these people, but if you dig deep and you go back into their history, more often than not, there is a level of maladaptation that would have occurred during their early childhood. So these are really critical and uh potentially lifelong impactful scenarios that we're discussing today. And children who consistently experience safety and responsiveness are more likely to develop healthy emotional foundations. So parents often ask all toddlers have tantrums. When should I worry? Or what are the signs that would tell me that this is not a regular tantrum, it's not a regular outburst, and there's something deeper. It is true that many challenging behaviors are completely normal. And examples of normal developmental behavior include obviously what we often refer to as temper tantrums in toddlers in two-year-olds, or things like separation anxiety, where a child really becomes extremely emotional when they are separated with their regular caretaker, or fear of strangers, testing limits, and emotional outbursts. These are some of the behaviors that uh, depending on the age of your child, could be normal. And this is because your child's brain is still learning to manage, to regulate emotions. So this is fine. But when should we actually pay closer attention? When should we be concerned and seek additional help? So some warning signs that I'm going to elicit here. One is persistent withdrawal. So a child who rarely or never smiles, who avoids interactions or sticks to themselves, plays alone, and does not really interact with other children or even the adults around them. Then there is things like extreme irritability. If a child seems to be constantly distressed or very, very difficult to soothe, that they are very disruptive, they have constant extreme irritability. Or if uh your child had attained certain milestones, and then all of a sudden they seem to have regressed. So uh developmental milestone regression, we call it. I can give you an example. For example, if your 18 months old or your two-year-old had already started speaking a couple of words and had maybe uh appropriate vocabulary for a two-year-old, good number of words, starting to put two words together to form a sentence, and then all of a sudden they lose that. All the vocabulary is gone, and they are barely able to communicate verbally as it should be at their age. That is uh a red flag. And then other things like uh severe or persistent sleep disruptions or feeding challenges, if they are consistently avoiding connection with caregivers or peers, uh these can all be uh um concerning and alarming and should not be avoided. And if we just pick up one example of uh autistic spectrum disorder for children who are developing autism, it's quite frequent that your child has been growing well, and at a certain point they actually regress what they had acquired as skills, whether it's verbal, whether it's uh social and cognitive, they seem to have taken steps backwards. And that's what we call regression. So that should not be avoided. With that, you really need to seek appropriate professional attention, medical care, and get your child uh looked at. So the question now is uh can trauma affect babies even if they won't remember it? And many parents believe that you know their children are young and they don't understand what's happening, so it's not a problem. But the fact is that children's brains and bodies respond to stress long before they can form memories. Babies may not remember specific events, but their developing brains can still be affected by things like chronic neglect, or if there's violence in the home around them, or if there is severe family conflict. So any extreme stress around them, around the environment, uh, can affect them, uh whether we like it or not. And there are other things that are actually uh also a big concern. So, for example, if their caretaker, a parent, their mother or father, or both, if they have persistent stress, um, so for example, we have now research in Rwanda that actually uh has put some definition on what has happened during the genocide against the Tutsi and what uh our people went through. So some children were very young, some were even not yet born. And what has happened is that there's been this uh transgenerational uh trauma that has been passed on from the parents who were who went through very difficult times, extremely traumatizing times, and you actually see the impact in their children, whether they were uh uh pregnant with them, whether they were born but still very young, or even those that were not there, that were not even conceived. So when a parent or a caregiver is dealing with extreme stress, it has an impact directly and indirectly on the child. And of course, abuse in general. So researchers call this uh toxic stress. And unlike normal stress, toxic stress is intense, it's prolonged, and it occurs without adequate support from the caring adults and from the environment. So when toxic stress continues, it can affect brain development and it definitely affects emotional regulation, things like learning and even physical health in general. This is why protecting children from chronic adversity is very, very important. So, why is it then that we don't talk about children's mental health that frequently? And this is particularly in our communities here in Africa, where conversations about mental health can be very difficult. And there's probably several reasons for this. One obviously is stigma, and many people fear being labeled and they don't want to deal with it, they don't want to talk about it, they would rather just keep it quiet and not say anything about it. And then, of course, there is a general misunderstanding where a lot of people assume that mental health, emotional health, and all these issues only affect old children and adults. And of course, there's all the other cultural beliefs where uh parents may interpret emotional struggles as misbehavior, weakness, or poor discipline. I'm sure uh we all know a family or our own families where uh a child or even an adolescent is struggling genuinely with mental health and emotional regulation. And there is more stress placed on them, put on them, because it will be interpreted as bad behavior, poor discipline, a very difficult and impossible child. Often they they they get even punished because of this, which obviously makes everything much worse. So I think the importance of this conversation today is that uh the earlier concerns are identified, the easier they are to address. Might not be as easy, but at least once they are picked up earlier, then you have a possibility of getting appropriate help, getting appropriate advice and therapy when needed. And of course, when interventions are done early, you have a chance for better outcomes and the greater the opportunity to support healthy development. So seeking help is not really a sign of failure, it's a sign of care and responsibility. So, what can we do as parents at home to support emotional well-being? The good news is that as parents, we have tremendous influence on our children. Uh, we don't need to be perfect. You do not need to be perfect. Children benefit most from caregivers who are consistently present, responsive, and loving and really being intentional. Because we know very well that children thrive emotionally when they know that someone will comfort them and someone will protect them, and that someone will actually listen. Because this is what uh in psychology is called secure attachment, it leads to your child developing a secure attachment. So it's important to create safe and predictable environments because children feel safer when life is predictable, they know what to expect, and often it's the simple routines, you know, mealtimes, sitting together as a family to have meals or simple routines at bedtime. You know, uh my go-to when my children are younger is reading stories around bedtime or playing a simple game together before bedtime. These are often seemingly simple, mundane activities, but they go a long way in helping your child to adapt and regulate. And then I've seen all kinds of family rituals where they have something they do together on a weekly basis, or um, you know, they have uh schedules that play board games um and they involve everybody, younger children, older children, and these are really, really, really good, good family routines that help. Uh, because we know that predictability reduces anxiety, and this is important. The other important thing is that we should learn to talk about feelings, and we should help our children learn emotional language and how and to express clearly what they feel. So instead of saying, stop crying, stop doing this, stop doing that, it might it is much more helpful to try something like, I can see you're upset, let's talk about it. And then you try to teach your child to actually verbalize, to express, to establish the clarity of what they're feeling and be able to communicate it effectively. Uh, obviously, uh it should be age appropriate. You know, the way a three-year-old will communicate is going to be different from how an eight-year-old is going to communicate. Um, and with this, we know that children who can identify emotions also get better at managing them. Then I spoke about playing together. And play is not just entertainment because play, having time to play, helps children to process experiences, to develop social skills, they build confidence and they learn emotional regulation. If you play a game together and they win or lose, they're actually learning something. Uh, and depending on how you handle it, this is often a very, very good learning uh opportunity. So sometimes the best mental health intervention is simply spending quality intentional time together. Um, the next important point is actually uh the parental mental health. So, you know, there's a common saying that hurt people hurt people. When as a parent you have not dealt with your emotional stress or uh something to do with your mental health. Health, there is a big risk that you're going to have a negative impact on your children. So it's quite well established that children are deeply affected by the well-being of their caregivers. And so parents should also seek support when you're overwhelmed. And you should prioritize rest when it is possible and maintain good social connections and support for yourself and seek professional help if needed. Healthy parents are better able to support healthy emotional development for their children. I think that's a no-brainer. So I think from today's conversation, um the key takeaways are that mental health begins during infancy. It will begins very, very early when your child is growing in their first periods of their life. Emotional well-being is just as important as physical health. And early relationships and the quality of those relationships actually do shape how children see themselves and see the world. Most difficult behaviors are part of normal development, but not all of them. And that's why persistent changes in behavior deserve attention. And of course, as I mentioned, loving, responsive caregiving is one of the most powerful investments parents can make. So the goal is not to raise children who never struggle, the goal is to raise children who feel safe, supported, and equipped to navigate life's challenges. Before we leave, I would like to answer some of the questions that were sent to us by the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

We have our first question from David 34 from Kigani. My wife and I have had a stressful few months, and although we try not to argue in front of the baby, I worry he still picks up on the tension. Can infants actually sense stress in the home and how does it affect them?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Very good question. Actually, it's it's very related to the conversation uh that we were having today. And um the the simple answer to this question is yes. Babies can actually sense and pick up on tension from the caregivers. And although they are not able to understand words that adults are saying, they are remarkably sensitive to emotions, to the tone of voice, to facial expression, things like uh body language and emotional responsiveness. So our babies are biologically wired to look for, uh to look to caregivers for safety. And when a caregiver is come and emotionally available, babies do feel secure. So when there is ongoing tension or conflict or anger or emotional withdrawal, babies often sense it uh, that there is something different, there is something going on, even though they might not understand. So the the simple advice here is that um conflict happens, disagreements happen, and it's important to try and resolve them as soon as possible and the best way possible, so that the the environment where your your your child is growing uh stays uh positive, stays comfortable, um, and uh stays reassuring for your baby.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Second question from Grace 27, also from Kigali. I sometimes feel silly talking to my five months old because you can't answer me yet. Does talking, singing, and reading to babies really make a difference that early?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

The answer is a resounding yes, because in fact, talking, singing, reading, and responding to your baby are among the most powerful things a caregiver can do to support uh your child's brain development, language development, and emotional security and mental health in general. So thinking that because they cannot respond or they don't have language yet, because they are still young, uh, that it doesn't matter, it actually does really, really matter. You know, from birth, babies are listening, and even before they understand words, they are learning the sound of language, the rhythm of speech, the tone, the emotion, and the patterns of communication. So all of these things uh are part of the the reflexes that your baby has. And also it's well established that when your baby uh listens to you regularly, it builds the foundations for vocabulary, for communication skills, uh, for reading readiness, and even for success in school later on when they're a little bit older. So please don't stop talking to your baby because it matters. Talk to them, sing to them. It matters. It's well worth it. Uh, and it really sets a very good foundation.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

We have our last question from Claire29 from Kampala. I've heard that babies thrive on routine, but our family schedule is unpredictable. Does having an inconsistent routine affect an infant's emotional development?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

So this is a very relatable, realistic questions. It's not always possible to stick to routines. Sometimes there's work demands, there's all kinds of different types of pressures, and keeping up is not always feasible. But again, we always say that uh do the best possible that you can within your circumstances to have some form of routine. It might not be every day, it might be three times a week, uh, or it might even be once a week or twice a week. That still counts, that still has value because routines are important. And uh some things, for example, your baby's feeding or sleeping or other activities, whoever is available to take care of them should obviously try and build a routine and then additional things, whether it's play or reading for them or having you know time, quality time together, that can always be done uh based on your availability. I think even with unpredictability, there's always room to see what is feasible. You look at your week and you realize that maybe, yes, I can dedicate 30 minutes here or 20 minutes there, and we can do something together. So don't give up. Even though there is unpredictability, don't give up and use what you have and try to fit it in as much as you can. Thank you for listening to Healthy Beginnings. If you have any questions you'd like answered in the next episode, you can submit them to our email, healthybeginningspodcast at gmail.com. You can also follow us on all social media platforms. You can find us on YouTube as well as the audio platforms of your choice. See you next week.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

This podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only. Do not make health decisions without consulting your doctor. This podcast is brought to you by LF Media, home of great African podcasts.