Future happiness depends on child’s first three years

Your baby’s future chance of health, happiness and creativity is largely shaped by his or her experiences in the first three years of life.

Catherine Maguire, president of the Irish Association for Infant Mental Health (IAIMH), will tell a conference today a baby’s first relationship — usually with its mother — lays the foundation for future relationships.

If that relationship is positive, nurturing and enriching, then it will support the baby’s development of empathy and its capacity to form emotional attachments, Ms Maguire said.