Touch and physical closeness are very important for babies and young children. Touch is a direct form of communication for under-threes and can let them know that they are safe and cared for by their parents and other familiar carers, such as in a nursery.
Older babies and young children use touch themselves as a form of communication and to explore interesting play resources. They learn through hands-on experience, so they need an environment that is safe enough but without having so many 'don't touch' orders that life is boring.
0-12 months
In their early weeks babies are more at ease if they can feel the 'edge' to their world. They are calmed by being held close and by being wrapped.
Babies thrive on affectionate touch from their carers. They are especially sensitive to touch on the mouth, face, hands, soles of the feet and abdomen.
Babies try to reach out and touch before they are adept at making contact. With practice, babies of three to four months old are able to connect with interesting objects. Reaching out to touch an adult's face is as much part of babies' very early communication with others as their enthusiastic sound-making.
Within the second half of their first year babies use their mouth for feeling and exploring just as much as their hands. Babies gain information from touch that combines with their other senses. They can taste an object explored by mouthing, smell something held up close and hear the sound when they shake some play resources.
1-2 years
Older babies and toddlers use touching and pointing as a form of communication, indicating to others, 'this is interesting' or 'you look too'. Soon the non-verbal message also becomes a request to be told the name of an object or person.
Toddlers' physical skills allow them to explore extensively by touch, and they learn about their world best through hands-on exploration. Watch and you will see so many kinds of touch: grasping and poking, stroking and dropping, shaking and unwrapping, putting objects in and out of containers - and so many times.
Within a familiar environment, toddlers begin to understand some adult rules about 'don't touch' or 'not Mummy's bag'. They may wonder why, but they will learn to manage so long as there is not a huge list of 'don't's.
Toddlers especially like the nursery rhymes, such as 'Round and round the garden' and 'This little piggy', where they can anticipate that they will be touched in fun.
2-3 years
Young children learn about ways of describing the world through hands-on exploration. Ideas such as texture, weight and temperature, and contrasts such as wet and dry, make sense when children can feel these qualities.
Children will know enough about their personal world to enjoy identifying familiar objects just from the feel. Such games show impressive thinking power and imagination from very young children.
Young children still need to be physically close to familiar adults, especially when they are uncertain or temporarily distressed. And if they feel emotionally secure, they will voluntarily offer a sympathetic touch as comfort to children and adults who have been hurt or who look sad.
Tips for practice
* Be generous with your body language, even when children have words. Get into the good habit of touching or pointing to what you are talking about. You help young children to link your words to objects and events in play.
* Be realistic about children's play with other children or pets. Even two- year-olds are still learning about what is a gentle touch and what is too rough. You may need to say, 'That's a bit tight, you're squeezing her.'
* As young children explore by touch, you can naturally introduce comments about a play item or what the child is doing - for example, 'I bet that feels soft' or 'Is it heavy?' They connect your words with what they can touch and see.
Related Nursery World articles:
* 'Within their grasp', 1 October 1998
* 'Touchy feely', 27 September 2001