Tune in to your child to give them the best start to life
Have you ever wondered how being attuned with your infant can support their development?
The importance of connection and ensuring parents and carers feel well supported is the focus of this year’s Infant Mental Health Awareness Week (IMHAW).
IMHAW 2026 runs from 8-14 June and provides an opportunity to discuss the importance of an infants’ mental health and wellbeing as well as some of the issues that affect it.
Infant mental health is a child’s ability to feel and express emotions, form relationships, take in information from their environment and achieve their developmental milestones. Their mental health can change depending on their environment and experiences.
Positive infant mental health contributes to brain development and emotional wellbeing. It provides a foundation for good long-term outcomes in all areas of their health.
This year, IMHAW focuses on the theme of attunement – the ability to tune in and connect with others on an emotional level.
Emotional attunement involves noticing, understanding and responding to another person’s emotional state in a sensitive and appropriate way.
When adults are emotionally attuned to babies and young children they notice cues, validate children’s emotions and appropriately respond to them.
MLHD Perinatal Infant Mental Health Clinical Lead Keryl de Haan said attunement was important for everyone, but particularly for babies and their parents or carers.
“This year, Infant Mental Health Awareness Week highlights how attuned early relationships support babies’ development,” Keryl said.
“Attunement helps babies to feel safe and loved. It helps babies learn to regulate their emotions, supporting good infant mental health.
“Attuned relationships support both infant and parental wellbeing and
help babies get off to the very best start in life.”
Coolamon mum Elyce Green knows the importance of the connection she and her husband Lochlan have with their two sons, four-year-old Fitz and six-month-old Cruise.
Fitz was born at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2021, meaning Elyce spent a lot of time alone at home every day.
At the time, she also didn’t know what to expect as a new mum, and found herself asking “is this a normal way to feel?” and “does every mum feel like that?”
The nurse turned Charles Sturt University academic now knows being a parent is not easy and that everyone’s journey is different.
While IMHAW focuses on infants, parental mental health forms an important pillar of family wellbeing.
“It's a lot about the way people talk about being a mum and I guess that expectation that you do just cope and that we don't really talk about the tough stuff,” she said.
“There are very few people who said to me, ‘Oh yeah, being a mum is really hard’. Everyone just expects it to be OK.”
It wasn’t until Fitz was about 18 months old that Elyce got to a place where she was “OK to be a mum”.
“That’s why it took me so long to have another one,” she said.
It was a “totally different journey” with Cruise, which Elyce attributed in part to increased confidence from having already been through it previously.
“I kind of accepted that there is no right or wrong. Whereas the first time I thought, why aren't I doing it right?” she said.
“With Fitz, I turned myself inside out about it, but with Cruise I'm just like I just need to do what I need to do and get through this.
“I don't necessarily always know why he's feeling that way or what he wants, but I can look at him and think, yep, he's content, he's looking around or he's happy.
“It's a lot about the body language too, like he'll make a noise and I'll just pick him up and hug him. You don't go through the process of thinking, ‘Oh, he needs a hug’, but you just know that innately … it’s just that connection.”
Lochlan’s connection with the boys is about building a relationship where they can “trust each other and talk about anything”.
"For me, that’s about spending as much time with them as I can playing together, and also teaching them things they are interested in, and getting them involved in jobs around the house and yard,” he said.
Elyce’s message to other parents and carers was to be there for their children, and their partners, and to back themselves.
“There's no right or wrong. I think if you're asking yourself, ‘Are you doing a good job?’, you probably are,” she said.
“If you're trying to be a good parent, then you are a good parent.”
Parenting Resources
• MLHD Child and Family Health Nurses: 1800 654 324
• Parent Line: 1300 1300 52
• NSW Health Building Brains and Bodies
• Raising Children’s Network – Connecting and communicating with newborns
• Molly Wright: How every child can thrive by five (TED Talk)
• NSW Health: The first 2000 days of life
• Noticing and navigating feelings - The Centre for Early Childhood’s Explainer series
Mental Health Resources
• MLHD Community Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol Service: 1800 800 944
• PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia): www.panda.org.au
• PANDA helpline: 1300 726 306
• Lifeline: 13 11 14
• Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636
• If symptoms are more severe and involve thoughts of harm to oneself or the baby, immediate help is available by attending your local hospital emergency department or contacting Accessline on 1800 800 944.