The insertion of babies in a day care involves family members, child and caregivers in a complex integration process, as in our culture, collective education is a recent phenomenon. Social representations and scientific literature reinforce the notion that, by nature, babies require personal care at home, by their own mother. Consequently, she often feels guilty for leaving her baby in an institution. The baby's first period in a day care thus implies the emergence and creation of new meanings which are attributed to, assumed by, confronted to and negotiated in the interactions established by all participants. A model was developed to analyse this process based on a research project on the insertion of 26 infants (5 to 18 months old) into a day care. Video recordings, observational reports, as well as interviews with mothers, caregivers and technicians were made during the babies' first year at an university day care centre. The model focus on three main personages: mother, child and caregiver and on their mutual relationships which create three interconnected fields. The mother-child field is inserted in a larger network, the family scenery. The other two, caregiver-child and mother-caregiver fields are located in the day-care scenery. Both scenarios are impregnated by a wider social-historical matrix created in complex cultural, economic and political systems. The various elements are interconnected in a semiotic network of meanings, which continuously transforms and structures human development, allowing varied paths of behavior for each individual.
