Infant Mental Health Week and launch of ‘Starting Out to Play’: a new resource

There is widespread acknowledgement that being outdoors (especially in greenspace) has a positive impact on our health and wellbeing. No matter our age, we can all benefit from time spent in nature. 

Being outdoors, particularly in natural spaces, has multiple benefits for our physical and emotional wellbeing. Babies and young children who develop a connection to nature are likely to develop lifelong habits of play and learning outdoors. The earlier we associate being outdoors with feeling happy and comfortable the better for our long term health.

Coinciding with Infant Mental Health Awareness Week 2025, we are launching a new Inspiring Scotland resource Starting Out to Play: Discovering nature with babies and young children. To mark the launch, we are hosting a session with Glasgow-based organisation 3D Drumchapel who offer a wide range of family focused programmes.

Inspiring Scotland’s Thrive Outdoors team collaborated with Scottish Forestry and OWLS – Outdoor and Woodland Learning Scotland to produce the resource which aims to:

• support practitioners, working with parents, families, and carers, to make the most of the multiple benefits to health, well-being and learning found in connection to nature. 

• encourage a strong connection between babies, young children and the natural environment, leading to a lifelong bond with nature so that people and nature can thrive together. 

We are also grateful to Natural Resources Wales for providing us with the inspiration for this guidance and a powerful springboard into creating a resource for Scotland.

Starting Out to Play shares research on the many benefits of spending time outdoors, particularly in nature. In it, you will find lots of ideas to help you, families, babies, toddlers and young children get outdoors and enjoy nature whether it is in a local park, a garden, the woods or the beach. 

So this Infant Mental Health Week we encourage anyone involved in supporting our littlest citizens, parents, families, and carers, to make the most of the multiple benefits to health, well-being and learning found in connection to nature. 

Here are some really practical ways below, inspired and adapted by 5 Ways to Wellbeing | Mind – Mind framework to get outside.  

Connect 

Meet up with a friend and whether using a buggy or a carrying pack, take baby out for a walk into local nature spaces regularly. A daily walk outside is good for you and good for baby.

Connecting with friends and family outdoors is an inexpensive alternative to meeting indoors in a café and if you choose to meet outdoors you won’t feel obliged to tidy up and clean for visitors.  If you can, join or create your own outdoor parent and baby group. 

Pay Attention  

Whenever baby is outside, describe out loud the sights, sounds, smells, and textures in the spaces you visit to support language acquisition and provide the comfort of your voice. 

Use time outdoors as a space for you and baby.  Leave your phone behind, pay attention to the world around you and focus on what you and baby can see, hear, smell and feel.  

Give 

Make a garden. It doesn’t have to be big. It can be as small as a deep tray. Young children can help to weed, plant seeds, make potting compost, water plants and help harvest produce   

You can support wildlife by feeding the birds, planting a small garden or window box with pollinator friendly flowers and plants. Whatever you do, involve baby from the start.  Provide that running commentary while you plant or fill a bird feeder or feed ducks in the local park. 

Be active 

Let babies lie on blankets or rugs (in dry, shaded places) on grass to kick and practice body movements. 

Regular walks in parks, gardens, woodland or on a beach are good for adults and provide lots of stimulus for talking to baby.  Make it part of your routine and try and get outdoors whatever the weather.  You will feel the benefit.  Once your routine is established, you miss the outdoors on days when you don’t go out.  Look out for days and look out for spaces where you can lay out a space for baby to roll, stretch, reach, lie on their tummy. 

Learn 

Sing nature themed rhymes and songs to baby, indoors and out. 

Singing songs and rhymes with baby are great way to play from the earliest stages, make eye contact, act out the rhymes with finger actions or facial expressions.  Learn some nature themed songs that you can revisit outdoors. Bookbug has lots of videos for songs and rhymes outdoors. – Sharing songs, rhymes and stories before birth – Scottish Book Trust. Look out for I hiv a little spider and Little Green Frog and All the Little Ducks Go Upside Down. Bookbugs also shares the benefits of sharing books and rhymes with baby pre-birth.