RIE parenting

What It Means

RIE parenting is an approach to raising babies and toddlersToddlerA child from 1 to 3 years old, the stage CDC's parenting guidance places between infancy and the preschool years. See more that comes from Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE), the organization Magda Gerber founded for her ideas about respectful care. Gerber called the approach Educaring. It rests on respect and on trusting the baby as someone who starts things, explores and learns on their own, while the adult provides a safe, predictable setting, gives full attention during care routines like feeding and diapering, and steps in selectively.

How Parents Say It

• "I tell her what I'm doing before I pick her up."
• "We let him struggle a bit with the toy first."
• "She plays on her own on the mat while I watch."

The Breakdown

Core ideas, per rie.org

• Respect is the base of everything.
• Trust the baby as an initiator, explorer and self-learner.
• Set up a safe environment where the baby can do what comes naturally.
• Give time and attention to care routines such as feeding and diapering.
• Let babies work through problems where they can, and step in selectively.
• Keep the day predictable, and watch closely to understand each child.

What it can look like, birth to about 2. Buhata's own examples of those ideas.

When to talk to the doctor. RIE is a caregiving philosophy and doesn't replace checkups. If you have questions about your baby's development, ask your pediatrician.

Where It Comes From

Magda Gerber founded Resources for Infant Educarers as a home for her approach to respectful, trusting care, which she named Educaring. RIE says her focus on care routines and on respecting a baby's own capacity to learn has since been taken up by families and early childhood programs.

Good to Know

RIE comes from one founder and one organization, and this page describes it as rie.org presents it. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC publish their own guidance on development and safety, including safe sleepSafe sleepThe AAP's rules for lowering the risk of SIDS and suffocation: baby on the back, alone, on a firm flat surface in their own sleep space, every sleep. See more, and those rules apply whatever philosophy you follow. Watching and waiting before you help is always balanced against safety: step in right away when a baby could get hurt.

Related Terms and Categories

• Montessori at home

  Using Maria Montessori's ideas at home: a child-sized, orderly space, real tasks shown step by step, and room for the child to do things independently.

• Open-ended play

  Play with toys or materials that have no single right way to use them, like blocks, boxes or playdough, so the child decides what they become.

• Gentle parenting

  An approach that pairs empathy for a child's feelings with clear, consistent limits, with the parent acting as a coach through hard moments.

• Co-regulation

  The way a calm, caring adult helps a child manage feelings and behavior, through a warm relationship, a steady setting and coaching, until the child can do more alone.

• Unstructured play

  Play a child chooses and directs, with no adult-set rules, lesson or goal, like making up a game in the yard or building whatever comes to mind.

Parenting and child development