New and old friendships: How early do they begin?



Friendships start at a very early age and its all in the proof of a picture. Approximately 53% of infants spend at least 10 hours a day with a childcare provider and other children. This is where the bonding begins. In my years of teaching young children, I have learned that friendships begin really young. How young you ask? Well in my own experience it started in the womb. I started working with a girl 17 years ago at a child care facility. We both knew each other through mutual friends and quickly learned that we were both expecting. Not only were we expecting girls, we were expecting close together. So immediately we started planning what our little girls were going to do when they grew up and that we would make sure that they grew up and stayed friends forever.
Well things didn't happen the way we had planned, my friend ended up delivering her baby girl early and had to leave the job. We didn't speak much after and of course we went our own way. Months passed by and I decided to move childcare centers and place my daughter with me. It was just like a scene from the movies, here comes this cute little girl with her mom and grandma. I looked at the girl twice and said " oh is she starting here"? This must be fate, both our little girls were together again. These two were friends instantly. I only can think of what we were in for. They both had very different personalities, likes, dislikes and weird thing was that they seemed like they knew each other forever.
What is the reason for this story, well these two girls are 16 years old and they are still best friends and live 45 minutes away, attend different schools, have likes, dislikes, different friends but yet when they get together its like they have never been apart.
This summer we were on a trip to the beach and because social media is such an important role in most of our lives; a post was on a site that we were only hotels away from each other and they wanted to meet up. So what do two moms do, they meet up and get them together even if it is for 8 hours. These two were able to catch up on some rays, laughs and memories.
This story shows that babies do learn about other infants in the womb and that infants are building relationships even at 6 weeks of birth. Letting infants sit with others during circle time and play time helps  to build social skills and interactions. So when you are leaving your infant with his/her teacher and classmates just think of the friendships that your child will be making.Brooklinn and Emma