Babies and Toddlers Need to Love a ‘Secondary Attachment Figure’ in Day Care

Babies and toddlers will have their attachment seeking response activated in the absence of the primary or a secondary attachment figure when they are in the presence of a stranger and in unfamiliar surroundings. Between the ages of about six and thirty months, babies and toddlers can only terminate their attachment seeking response by reaching proximity to an attachment figure, and unless this can be achieved their attachment seeking response will remain unterminated. This is the experience of many babies and toddlers each day during certain forms of non-parental day care. Day care without access to a secondary attachment figure is more likely to be the case in group settings such as day-nurseries, than when care is provided by an individual carer such as a childminder, nanny, or grandmother, who is more likely to be a secondary attachment figure. This paper discusses the likelihood of babies and toddlers being able to terminate their attachment seeking response during different forms of non-parental day care, and discusses some of the psychological defence processes (including dissociation), that may be activated when the attachment seeking response remains unterminated throughout the day.