The first three years of life are critical for brain, language and motor skills development.

Therefore, it is heartening to hear that infant care centres have increased the variety of activities offered (Infant-care boom in Singapore, Dec 27).

The quality of an infant care centre is only as good as the caregivers working there.

Besides looking into staff-infant ratio, parents need to assess whether there is any authentic emotional connection between caregivers and their infants.

Infants thrive when there is a loving emotional connection with their caregivers - not in a structured learning environment per se.

Are there gentle exchanges of gaze and touch between caregivers and the infants? Or, are infants merely kept busy from one activity to the next? Do caregivers whisper to an infant to prepare him for the next activity before picking him up? Do caregivers respect each individual infant's routine and needs such as sleep, play and feeding time?

Structured learning environments for infants are meaningless unless there is the experience of joint attention - the give-and-take responses of shared affective moments between caregiver and infant that promote the stimulation needed for infants to thrive.

Generally, infants are happy exploring day-to-day objects and activities such as fiddling with house keys, watching a parent cooking in the kitchen, rustling newspapers, banging hands on a table and gazing at themselves in the mirror. Infants' natural curiosity is what drives them to learn. They do not need fancy, expensive learning materials or environments.

What do infants really need to thrive? Infants need nurturing love and secure emotional connections with caregivers who are mindfully present and engage in joint-attention activities with them, talk to them, respect and take cues from them on whether they are in the mood for play, and provide good nutrition and a clean and safe environment.

We need to respect the elegance of love in human connection.

Rebecca Chan (Dr)