The Brazilian early childhood education is characterized by the duality between care and education. This duality is even more evident in the baby nursery routine, because babies have needs and demand from caregivers practices beyond the ones considered educational. This study aimed to investigate practices of care and beliefs about development of babies, from caregivers' point of view. Fourteen caregivers from public baby nurseries were interviewed and their answers were qualitatively analyzed grounded in three categories based on the dimensions of care proposed by Winnicott: holding, handling and object-presenting. The results showed that the caregivers identified the holding as the main need of babies, and handling and presenting objects as the main practices. This study highlights the importance of valuing the basic care as a rightful doing of childhood education professionals, considering its importance to the healthy emotional development of baby.
Early childhood education; beliefs; early childhood educators
