RHYTHMS, ROUTINES AND ROUTINIZATION

By María Emilia López1

Working material prepared for the Fifth National Workshop with Advisors. Strengthening Program
Early Education and Child Development. Secretariat of Public Education. Mexico City. November 23 to 26
from 2010.

Following a concern from Heidy Muñoz Díaz2(anxiety that has been repeated in many)
from you), I start to write this text. Heidy sends me an email in which she says:

The reason for my email is to ask you to help me get out of some small issues.
questions I have regarding the routines practiced in the Development Centers
childish.
In one of his conferences, he mentioned that babies needed a routine but
that this should be provided by a careful gaze at the moment of being with him
baby, that is, things should not be done mechanically. From here arises my
restlessness. Previously, at the Child Development Centers, it was conducted
a nap and feeding routine with the babies, where a
schedule and created an environment conducive for the babies to sleep during
during this time, my question is should we continue with the nap routines and
feeding, obviously respecting those babies who do not wish to sleep and
eat at that time? Or on the contrary, should these routines be eliminated and
schedules and the babies must be attended to individually, feeding them and
sleeping them according to the need of each one.

Heidy's questions invite me to talk first about rhythm, something fundamental to

take into account in the accompaniment of babies and young children.
We have worked hard on the importance of providing children with appropriate care,
attending to their uniqueness. We've also seen that at birth, babies lack
any constant of time and space, nor do they have representations of what
They live. This means that to organize something from their chaotic feelings, it is necessary
to give them meanings. One of the most effective ways to help a baby to signify
What lives happens with the construction of rhythms.
Hunger, which at first is not called 'hunger' but strange disordered sensations and
ungrateful, the baby transforms it into 'sign' when the mother, the father, or the caregiver puts it
words and actions that help calm him down, systematically. A 'rhythm in the
Breastfeeding is for the baby a safeguard against its dispersion, against the risk that
it implies that absence of 'continuity of being'3that still happens to him. The incorporation of a
rhythm is an "island of consistency" - as Daniel Stern puts it4for the little boy. It
dispersed unifies and takes on meanings.
The rhythm implies a return, a repetition, a kind of circularity, capable of opposing
to the dissemination and dispersion that permanently threaten the baby5.

The rhythms include time (for example, between one meal and another) and also the qualities.
specifics with which that action is carried out. For example, if a mom is breastfeeding.
to her baby while focused on something else, if she rarely looks at him while breastfeeding and then
the searching gaze of the baby falls into the void, if the mom does not find a comfortable position
to hold it and the baby is semi-hung, straining to support its body

1
María Emilia López is a Specialist in Early Education. External advisor for the Education reform.
initial that leads in front of the Secretariat of Public Education of Mexico.
2
Technical-pedagogical advisor for Early Education in the State of Chihuahua.
3
Winnicott, Donald. The processes of maturation and the facilitating environment. Paidós, 1993.
4
The Interpersonal World of the Infant
5
Konichekis, Alberto. Cited by Michele Petit in The Art of Reading in Times of Crisis. Ocean Editorial,
Mexico 2009.
1
Besides sucking, we could assume that a good rhythm will not be established there.
The same would happen if the educational agent feeds in a precarious situation.

The qualitative creates the rhythm; if in response to the discomfort or crying of the baby or babies, the reaction
the adult is of restlessness, shaking it, or disconnecting from sensitivity towards the
problem, the child will not be able to incorporate within himself, in his mind, a good action of
care; and the good actions of care that the child incorporates are the ones that will
allowing the gradual construction of their autonomy, their ability to distance themselves from the adult to 'be'
in the world. The security that an adult gives him who always watches him while feeding him, which
talk to a baby eating solids sitting in their chair, who always holds
comfortably to the child who is having his bottle, also is part of a rhythm that the child
introyecta. Here the repetition of the good mode of care sets the rhythm.

When we say it is important to build a feeding rhythm with a small child,

we are referring to the care of your physical and mental health; among the free demand for the
breastfeeding at the beginning and the establishment of certain guidelines of space and time between meals,
It is the rhythm that makes a certain autonomy of the child possible, who will be able to calm down with others.
things, not just the chest, in that wait that the mother helps him to make when she "reads" that not
it is always about hunger the crying, but rather about the need for hugs, for some discomforts,
of sleep, of the desire to play with something else, etc. The caregiver who knows that this baby took
Very well, his bottle an hour ago, and that it is not hunger everything a baby says when
cry, you can look for strategies to accompany him in his needs, beyond food. A
a game of hands, a song, a puppet, a book, a walk, or a rocking hug can
help the child calm the anxiety that often disturbs him (and the adult too).

Rhythm is a regularity. It is also worth remembering something here that we have

worked a lot: I mean the continuous presence of the same educational agents,
stable ties as a guarantee for the integrity of the child6. The “regularity” of the
the presence of significant adults is a source of well-being, as well as the construction
of good basic rhythms. It's not the same to say goodbye to mom in front of any adult,
that doing it alongside their educator; it is not the same as having different people rotate in the room,
alternately attending to the child, as if certain care is the responsibility of each
who, on a regular basis.

The rhythm of feeding and sleep and the other rhythms that play provides

Much has been written about the importance of lullabies, for example, as a
rhythmic support for the baby to return to calm and fall asleep. 'Already from fetal life,
the child listens to the sounds of the maternal body, its heartbeat, its voice. Rhythmic unity of
intrauterine dialogue that will be continued by the mother after birth when speaking,
singing and rocking the baby7When the baby is resting on the chest of that adult who knows
calm him, for he loves him, the rhythm of his swaying, of his heartbeats, returns harmony to him.
The rhythm as a reassuring turn of the continuity of being. As babies
finding that external calm provided by the adult, they become capable of building
internally states of calm, to recognize that what they feel is hunger, or cold, or
dream...

Learning to sleep more than three or four hours at night requires a certain maturity of
nervous system to filter stimuli from the environment and continue sleeping; that maturation
it is linked to the regularities that children build for their lives throughout the day.
In that sense, naps and eating at stable times help with learning.

6
López, MaríaEmilia. "On the Art of Planning Activities with Babies and Toddlers". Working Document
for educational agents. Program to strengthen Early Education and child development. SEP.
2010.
7
Altmande Litvan, Marina. 'The lullaby: a natural resource in the mother-baby relationship.' Journal 0 in
conduct. No. 56. Year 23. December 2008, Mexico.
2
night dream8If parents or educators understand the baby's behaviors,
they can ensure the most appropriate rhythms in each case. When there is a mismatch between
the needs of the baby and the readings we adults do, anxiety and disorder
they become a source of displeasure for the child.

Small children need to build rhythms, and those rhythms are constructed in the
interactions with adults. These rhythms are unique to each baby or child
small. The adult is responsible for deciphering the child's needs, and based on
Hello, guide him, offer him action possibilities suitable to his needs, whether they are
these play, sleep, eat... in a stable manner.

The way the adult mirrors affection towards the child will depend on the child's ability to
becoming a social and dialogical being. "The process is intersubjective. The child comes to know the
the caregiver's mind to the extent that the caregiver strives to understand and contain
the mental state of the child... If the caregiver's reflective capacity has allowed them to imagine
in an appropriate way the child's intentional perspective, then the child will have the
opportunity to find oneself in the other as a mentalized being9.
The construction of rhythm is therefore a theme between two, hence the importance of the figure.
of the educational agent for babies and very young children, if we consider that the child is
recognize with the mind as long as it is well read by an accompanying adult.

Many times we receive mothers and fathers whose babies are very anxious, crying.
too much, they do not achieve moments of calm, often the mothers and the same agents
educators call these 'difficult children'. When we trace a little about the rhythms
of the baby in their house, we often find that some have not yet been built
basic constants for the child, both in sleep and feeding times, as well as in the
types of accompaniment. Many times, talking with a mom about
difficulties, we can help you think about which songs would suit you better when it comes to
sleeping and why to repeat them, why tranquility is important at the time of
feeding, how to detect calming gestures for that particular baby.

As children grow, they become more capable of adapting to rhythms other than
they are their own, as happens in other areas of life: they can adapt to a game
shared, wait longer for a toy, listen and respect a guideline, understand
the point of view of the other.
Small babies, on the other hand, still need a greater respect for individuality.
we could say that in a group of babies, it is very difficult for everyone to fall asleep and
eating at the same time, if we are trying to be respectful of their rhythms. There are some
simple reasons: the baby who had a bad night will need to take their nap
earlier tomorrow, because his physical endurance is very conditioned by those hours
of lost sleep. A 3-year-old child who hasn't slept well at night may have
a little bad mood, but probably can adapt to the "group rhythm" and do his
nap after the meal... the baby doesn't.
Some babies bottle-feed during the night, others do not; that defines differences in terms of
to the feeding rhythms during wakefulness...
Some babies feel very well 'held'.10for their mothers and fathers, and that security
they have very good playtime while they are awake, they play
a lot alone, they concentrate on the exploration of the objects… that is also a rhythm
own. Instead, there are babies who cannot tolerate being away from the body for too long
of the adult, and they really experience distress in the face of physical distance; those babies
they need more consistent attachment behaviors from educational agents, more
time for hugs, more shared looks… another kind of rhythms.

8
Brazelton, B. and Cramer, B. The earliest relationship. Parents, babies, and the drama of initial attachment. Paidós.
Barcelona, 1993.
9
Fonagy, Peter. “Prevention, the appropriate target of infant psychotherapy”. Infant Health Journal. Vol. 19, N°2.
10
To expand on the concepts of 'continuity of being' and 'sustenance', it is recommended to read the text.
About the art of planning tasks with babies and small children (María Emilia López).
3
If we take into account these individual differences especially from the first year of life,
establishing a unique routine with all the babies in a group can be
counterproductive, because we will be demanding from children rhythms that are not their own,
rhythms that undermine their needs, and that far from helping them to organize, create greater
anxiety and instability. That's why it is most likely that in a baby room the rhythms of
food, sleep, and play are variables; hardly the whole group will sleep or eat at the same time.
the same time. Establishing a common 'routine' for the entire group is not very beneficial for them.
Sometimes this leads to the organization of two or three subgroups of children, some
sleeping, others playing and others feeding, simultaneously.

As Heidy points out, eating and sleeping are two basic rhythms that organize
all the life of the smallest babies. We add attention to play, and
we try to make those daytime times enriched environments, facilitators of the
autonomy of the child, of their learning, of their creative development...
A few paragraphs above, I introduced the word routine. When a rhythm has achieved
stability, and the child feels safe with him, we can talk about the organization of some
hourly routines. For example, when everyone needs to sleep less in the morning, or
when that nap before lunch is no longer necessary, we can say that 'the routine
The meal time for this group is at 12:15 PM.
But again there are differences if those routines respond to the possibilities of the children.
or the needs of adults. If the meal schedule is set only in
function of the kitchen organization, it may be that at 12:30 we have half of
the children nodding off over their plates. In that case, the routine is out of the needs
of the children, their group rhythms have not been taken into account to organize the schedule of
food. Thus, it would be advisable to systematically advance the meal, so that
all children can do it more calmly. That is; the meal schedule routine must
to adapt to the rhythms of the group of children, and not the other way around.
Let's focus on something else: I'm referring to the 'schedule' routine, because the act of
feeding oneself is far from being a routine. Multiple factors are involved in nutrition.
variants that contribute to the bond, to affection, in addition to the foods that the child consumes.
In fact, many times we worry about some children who do not eat well, and rarely
is due to organic problems or dislike for food. Sometimes babies
they demonstrate -with their rejection of food or frequent vomiting- an impossibility of
to adapt to the living conditions we propose, just like the older children.
Sometimes they need more time, more company, more stability from adults, more tenderness.
Sometimes they are very worried and that influences their eating habits.
The same happens with sleep, if the companionship is devoid of tenderness, of gaze.
committed about that child, if we only rock him routinely as something mechanical, the
induction to sleep will be much less pleasant and probably more delayed. The act
to accompany the dream compromises creativity, commitment, tolerance, issues to
nothing mechanical. When the routine sets aside the artisanal-unique aspect of each child and of the
child-adult relationship, we talk about deroutinization.

Healthy routines and routinization

Separating from parents in the mornings is not an easy task, we could say that
In this aspect, each child also has their own 'rhythm'. When we try to homogenize the...
farewells from all the parents and children, we are likely risking forcing the
emotional possibilities of some children, of overburdening them, of losing sight of their
singularity11If we set up as a reception strategy the entry of the parents to the
room with the kids, and the possibility for them to play for a little while before saying goodbye, we are
creating a more respectful and flexible situation, that can turn into a good one

11
In fact, many times we find children crying in the room for a good while every day.
because the farewell has been difficult for them. Everyone separated from their parents at the checkpoint quickly, but not everyone
they were prepared for that routine, some have different rhythms, or are having a bad day... How important it would be
be attentive to the rhythm of each child, in that way they would be happier, healthier, and the agents
more relaxed educational settings as they have fewer stressful situations during that demanding time,
How is the reception?
4
routine. If every day the farewell is at the door of the room, but we give it
importance of the gesture of saying goodbye, we talked briefly with dad, we wished him that
have a good day and give a warm and interested "hello" to the child, we will be building
a good routine. "Routine" in that every day systematically the children can go through
for that situation, which will be different for each one, in duration, in the game they choose to play,
in the ways of saying goodbye. Routine in terms of certainty that this container space
it exists and is guaranteed.
That possibility of saying goodbye calmly to their parents, at their own pace, is a source of
very important security for the child; it helps calm the anxiety that it causes him
daily separation, allows him to face his anxieties and makes him feel that in that place there is
adults who offer continuity of experiences.
Some children have rituals at the moment of goodbye, specific greetings,
to hold onto something from the mother; those rituals also constitute reassuring forms of
to cross the separation.

A small child needs temporary and spatial organizations that allow him to trust.
in a certain predictability of the world. Going to sleep at a consistent time at night, repeating
the bedtime habits (telling a story, having mom or dad sing a song)
a series of actions before sleep (bathing and having dinner, for example), allow you a
organizing anticipation of their thinking.
These are routines that respond to their own rhythms and also help you build.
rhythms; but sometimes, when the routine separates from that child's need and becomes rigid,
it runs the risk of becoming routinization.
For example, regarding what Heidy proposes, we could say that the working style
what was previously done in child care centers in baby rooms, there is a risk
to become a routinization, because it systematizes schedules and actions for everyone
children alike, when they will surely have different needs. Perhaps that is why
Sometimes it takes so long to get them to sleep, or there's no time left to play...

Another area where routinization is an obstacle is play. We will analyze together.

proposals for plastic arts, drawing, reading, music, and body expression, in which
we will focus on this aspect: what happens there is a generator of
creativity and what is mere repetition? When the game proposal is centered
in which the child reproduces a specific end or reaches a predetermined result
educational agent, the game transforms into a routine that does not bring anything new to the
intelligence, and that it also crushes the child's interest. And how alarming it is that a child
lose the desire to know, to play, to investigate.
Sometimes children find it very difficult to listen to the educator, to listen to each other.
contribute to a group proposal; it would be interesting to review if the proposed activity challenges the
children's abilities, if it allows them to introduce their ideas, if it is new to them, or if
only "mechanizes" responses and attitudes...

A beautiful example of 'de-routinization', sustenance, and the right to play

Adriana12She is an educator in charge of a group of children aged 18 to 25 months. Me

she says that the work we did in the May Workshop, in Mexico City, moved her.
a lot. He/she remained thinking about the support, on what devices to plan for
allow their children better access to creativity, greater overall well-being.
One day he encounters the following problem: in his room there is a maze game,
those that have many wires and little wheels, square shapes, various colored shapes, of
wood, to pass through the wires. There are many children very interested in the
game, so many that constantly fight over it, such that almost none can
to play, and everything turns into a big shout.
The first reaction might be: -you have to wait your turn-, but Adriana finds it
it's evident that this is not a possible solution, children cannot wait, their anxiety for

12
This experience was led by Luz Adriana Hernández, an educator and part of the state reform team.
in the State of Nayarit.
5
playing is much bigger than its capacity for waiting or its understanding of time and
share...
A second reaction could be to remove the game from the room, until the children can
share it or wait for turns. We could almost say that this is the most common reaction.
But Adriana starts to have doubts, because taking away the toy is very far from
to support them, to give way to the creativity of children, to let them express their gestures
spontaneous, their initiative to play... Furthermore, if the interest is so great, there must be a reason for it.
Then Adriana comes up with another idea: she goes out to explore all the rooms of her
classmates and asks them to lend her all the toys identical to that one for several days. She succeeds.
Join 12 or 14. They will be taken to their room, they will be available to the children for about three weeks,
they will play very happily, some and others simultaneously, with pleasure, curiosity, excitement, without
fight, exchanging, as many times as they want.
After a while, the interest fades, the toy is no longer as significant, and Adriana
the return wheel begins.

There are many interesting things to think about here:

On one hand, Adriana makes a deroutinization of the use of materials. We are more
used to using what is inside each room. We rarely go out to search, we rarely
we perceive that everything is available, that the use and ownership of the materials can
be flexible.

On the other hand, there is a de-routinization of interventions. Adriana explores other ways.
of accompanying children disrupts their previous planning and introduces a variant that
It contains the initiative and desire of the children.

With her intervention, Adriana guarantees the right to play, to choose, to explore.

It is very likely that the children learned many things in that game that lasted so long.
as they needed. The rhythm of the activity was set by the children with their interest and their
epistemic impulse, Adriana was the companion who made that desire for learning a reality
and game.

Here there is repetition, a lot, but very far from routine; because repetition is linked
only to the need of continuing to play that game by the children, they choose
repeat it over and over again (with all the variations they must have tried), and that's the aspect
what marks the enormous importance of that game... It is a necessary and desired repetition by
Children, it is not an 'automatic' repetition.

There is a de-routinization of the gaze on the child and the limits. Far from repressing play,
or to punish the difficulty in sharing, Adriana takes into account that her children have
just 2 years; to shift focus, to put aside their egocentrism, to share toys
dear ones, it is too great a challenge for them; that is why, instead of demanding that they
They adapt to the lack of a toy for each one, goes out to find toys for everyone... A
gesture of ethical, playful, loving support. A bet on creativity, on learning,
to exploration, to freedom. A learning of self-regulation tailored to children
2 years...

In the game, as in art, routine - especially when it becomes routinization -

it weakens its power. The richest and most interesting aspects of art and play lie precisely in the
opportunity to invent, to discover the unknown, the not created.
Rhythm, routine, and routinization are three very related concepts; however, their effects
About children can be radically different.

Thanks to Heidy for sharing her question and to Adriana for sharing her experience.
MEL–