Understanding Your Baby course

Virtual services

Understanding Your Baby is an online course made up of six workshops and is available to those in Hackney.​

Workshops

There’s one workshop each week, and each workshop lasts up to two hours. You should attend all six workshops, as each session builds on the previous content.

Young mum holding her baby

There will be plenty of opportunities for you to get involved during the workshops and ask questions.  

The six workshops and their aims are: 

1: Understanding your and your baby’s feelings 

  • Recognise and understand your own feelings.​ 
  • Identify your baby’s physical and emotional feelings.​ 
  • Recognise what/who helps you process your feelings relating to your baby.​ 
  • Recognise how you help your baby process their physical and emotional feelings. ​ 
  • Revisit some relaxation techniques​. 

2: Understanding your baby’s brain development, communication and crying​ 

  • To help you understand more about your baby’s emotional brain development.​ 
  • Understand your baby’s communications (especially crying). ​ 
  • Understand how you can respond sensitively to meet your baby’s physical and emotional needs. 

3: Understanding your baby’s behaviour patterns and developing a healthy sleep routine 

  • To introduce you to the way your baby understands and responds to you. ​ 
  • To explore your baby’s rhythms, for example in sleeping, waking, and feeding. ​ 
  • To help you understand more about developing healthy sleep patterns. 

4: Understanding your baby’s feeding   

  • To think about your memories of food and what you would like to pass onto your baby. ​ 
  • Recognise your baby’s cues and rhythms in relation to feeding. ​ 
  • Understand the importance of evidence-based advice about introducing your baby to solid foods.
  • Recognise that the introduction to solid food requires preparation. 

5: Understanding your baby’s play and development 

  • To understand your baby’s emotional and physical development. ​ 
  • To learn how you can support your baby’s development through play. 

6: Exploring being apart from your baby 

  • How being separate from your baby might feel for both of you.​ 
  • How you can help your baby manage this developmental stage​. 
  • Advantages and disadvantages of a range of childcare scenarios.​ 
  • What learning from the group you would like to use in the future. 

What you’ll need

To access the workshop, you’ll need a device that can use Zoom. If you haven’t used Zoom before and need help getting set up, take a look at the Getting started guide for new users.  

Then follow the steps below to confirm that you live in Hackney and book your place on the course on Zoom. 

If you need any support accessing the workshop, please email virtualfamilyspace@barnardos.org.uk and we’ll be happy to help you.  

When is the course?

The course runs for six weeks on the following dates:

  • Wednesday 12 June from 9:30-11:30 am
  • Wednesday 19 June from 9:30-11:30 am
  • Wednesday 26 June from 9:30-11:30 am
  • Wednesday 3 July from 9:30-11:30 am
  • Wednesday 10 July from 9:30-11:30 am
  • Thursday 11 July from 1 - 3 pm