5 Simple Ways to Show Your Little One More Respect

When I first became a mum, it honestly didn’t occur to me that I might need to learn how to show my newborn more respect.

Partly because, well, she was a newborn. A baby. What more respect did she need beyond constant love and care? And partly because there was a nagging voice in my head telling me that respect has to be earned. People have to do something for it, don’t they? What was my baby doing, other than eating, sleeping and filling nappies?

Looking back, that was a fairly narrow way of thinking about a tiny person who was already taking in the world, forming preferences and reacting to how she was spoken to and handled. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a common blind spot for new parents, and I think a lot of us start there without realising it.

Then I came across Magda Gerber’s parenting principles and the organisation she founded, Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE). I don’t follow every part of her approach, RIE can feel quite strict and some of it won’t suit every family or every temperament, but a handful of her ideas genuinely changed how I treated my daughter from her first weeks. Here’s what stuck, and how I’ve adapted it in practice.

1. Talk your baby through what’s happening

Try to imagine being lifted, undressed, wiped, and moved around all day by people much bigger than you, with no idea what’s coming next. Bright lights, strange sounds, sudden changes in temperature. It would be disorientating, maybe even frightening, if nobody explained anything.

Try narrating the small moments. “I’m picking you up now.” “We’re going over to the changing table.” “This cloth is going to feel cold on your bottom for a second.” It can feel a bit odd at first, talking through every step to someone who can’t answer back, but babies pick up far more from tone and repetition than we tend to give them credit for. Health visitors often encourage this kind of running commentary anyway, because it’s one of the simplest ways to build early language before a baby says a single word.

You don’t need to do this for absolutely everything, and there’s no need to feel guilty if you’re rushing through a nappy change at 3am without a full narration. It’s a habit that grows over time, not a rule to get perfect.

2. Speak to them in a real way

Speaking more slowly, with a warmer, higher-pitched tone, is completely normal and actually helpful. Researchers call this “parentese”, and studies on infant language development have found babies pay closer attention to it and it can support early word learning. That’s different from the kind of baby talk that swaps out real words for made-up ones (“widdo” for “little”, “wuv” for “love”).

The concern with that second kind isn’t that it will permanently damage speech, most children grow out of hearing it just fine, but that consistently swapping real words for baby versions delays their exposure to correct pronunciation and vocabulary. If you’re ever genuinely worried about your child’s speech or language development as they get older, that’s a conversation worth having with your GP or health visitor rather than something to guess at from an article like this.

The bigger habit I’d encourage is speaking directly to your baby rather than about her in the third person. “You look tired” rather than “baby looks tired!” It sounds like a small thing, but it treats her as someone present in the conversation, not a subject being discussed over her head.

3. Give the everyday tasks your full attention

Nappy changes, bath time, getting dressed, these happen so many times a day that it’s tempting to rush through them on autopilot, phone in one hand. But they’re also some of the only guaranteed one-on-one moments you get with your baby every single day.

Try, where you can, to put the phone down for those few minutes. Notice her face when the water hits her feet. Watch what she does with her hands when you count her toes. You’ll start to learn her particular likes and dislikes this way, whether she hates having her arms pulled through sleeves, or loves the moment right before you lift her out of the bath. It doesn’t take extra time out of your day. It just changes how you spend the time you’re already spending.

4. Trust their ability to explore on their own

Babies are more capable of entertaining themselves than we often assume, especially once they’re a bit more alert and past the very early newborn weeks. That doesn’t mean leaving them unsupervised or unattended, but it does mean resisting the urge to constantly step in, hand them the “correct” toy, or narrate exactly how to play with something.

My daughter was happy as a newborn just lying on her dad’s chest, watching the room. She didn’t need constant stimulation, the world itself was enough. As she got older, she’d sit and turn a wooden block over and over, working out its shape and weight, without me showing her what it was “for”. Giving her that space, even for a few minutes at a time, on a play mat or in a safe corner of the living room, helped her build focus and a bit of independence early on. It also, selfishly, gave me a few free minutes to drink a cup of tea while it was still hot.

If you want to try this, a simple, low-stimulation setup works best: a few open-ended toys (a scarf, a wooden spoon, a soft ball), a safe flat space, and you nearby but not hovering or directing. It’s not about ignoring your baby, it’s about not filling every silence for them.

5. Name and accept their emotions

Babies absolutely have emotions, and you don’t need a psychology degree to see it. It’s in the screaming, the scrunched-up face, the stiff little body. They just don’t yet have words for any of it, which is where you come in.

Naming what you see, “I can tell you’re frustrated, it’s hard when your hands won’t do what you want them to” or “you’re really upset that we had to leave the park”, helps babies and toddlers eventually learn to identify and manage their own feelings. It also tells them, long before they understand a single word, that what they feel is real and worth taking seriously.

Think about how it feels when you’re upset and someone tells you, “it’s not a big deal, you’re fine.” It rarely helps, and it usually makes you feel worse. Babies and toddlers are no different. You’re not obligated to fix every feeling or stop every cry immediately. Sometimes the most respectful thing you can do is simply sit with them while they feel it, and let them know you’re not going anywhere.

If you’d like to read more on this approach, Magda Gerber’s official RIE principles are worth a look, as is Janet Lansbury’s RIE Parenting Basics post, which goes into a lot more practical detail than I have space for here. As always, if anything about your baby’s development, behaviour or feeding is worrying you, your GP or health visitor is the right person to talk it through with, not a parenting article on the internet.

Image credit: Baby and Mom, by Kaeru Sand via Flickr.com