Strategies of day care center educators in dealing crying babies

The purpose of this study is to explore the views of day care center educators on how they act when babies cry, if they are able to identify the causes of crying and what are the subjection reasons that make them take action or not. Twenty-one caretakers were interviewed about each of the ninety babies, aged 4 to 24 months, under their care, using a semi-structured guide. The results show that overall the proportion of babies that do not cry significantly increases with age. However, crying for primary needs, in the view of the educators, tends to decrease as the average age increases, whilst crying for secondary needs tends to increase. Most of the time, the educators try to eliminate the needs that provoke crying, giving priority to the baby’s welfare. The article discusses the caretakers’ educative practices with data found in literature. Keywords: day care; educative practices; educators.