Understanding Your Baby: About the project
As parents, you are the most important persons for your child’s wellbeing. You are the ones that your child has the closest relationship to, as well as the ones who spend the most time with your child. But even though you are the ones who knows your child best, you will probably find it difficult to understand exactly what it is your child is trying to “tell” you from time to time.
Understanding Your Baby is a research project from the Department of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen. The purpose of the project is two-fold. First, we want to examine the well-being of first-time parents. To what extent do first-time parents experience competence and stress related to their new role? And where do they find help and advice if needed?
Secondly, we want to share research-based knowledge with parents on babies’ social and emotional development. Our hypothesis is that a better understanding of your baby’s needs is a step towards experiencing more competence and less stress related to your parenting role. To do this we are developing a research-based intervention in collaboration with the visiting nurses in ten Danish municipalities. This intervention will be implemented and testet during 2021.
Part of the intervention is an online video library, where we will create several short videos about babies’ social and emotional development and needs. These videos will be available for everyone, regardless if they are participating in the study or not. The video library will be published here on our website in autumn 2020.
“Becoming a first-time parent is joyful, but it is also related to new challenges and insecurity. Every parent has experienced standing with a crying baby who has just had a nap, food and his or her diaper changed, and asked themselves: what is it that you want? With Understanding Your Baby, we will strengthen parents' ability to read their baby’s signals so that they can meet the child’s emotional needs. When the baby feels understood, it creates an emotional bond between parent and child within the child’s first years, which has an effect on the child’s long-term development, concerning friendships, school readiness and learning.”
Understanding Your Baby: About the project
