The idea might sound bizarre but it has been amazing to do and quite emotional.

You start off by finding a mother who is expecting a baby and who is willing to commit to an hour's weekly observation for between two to five years.

"Well I'm not sure what you're going to observe apart from the baby being sick and changing nappies all the time", the mother queried. To be honest, I was wondering the same thing myself.

However, three years later I find myself being fascinated by the whole experience.

What has really stood out for me is how much pressure mothers put themselves under to get things right, which only seems natural.

But I feel it's a shame that the main focus is usually on external expectations.

If it's not down to what all the different books on the subject are advising, it'll be the competition and comparison to what other babies around the same age are doing.

And many new mothers have the stress of adapting their lives around such a big change, especially trying to get into a routine, preferably one that will fit around their eventual working hours, and this is all before the baby's first birthday.

British psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who worked on attachment theories and was influential in stopping babies being separated from their mothers in maternity hospitals, said: "There is no such thing as a baby."

He stressed that a baby would not survive without the mother/child relationship which is why it's important for a mother to validate her relationship with the baby with the same sensitivity you would with a child developing through any other time in their life.

From what I have seen, babies know what they want and they are capable of articulating themselves to others. But I can see that it can be hard for mothers to be relaxed about this.

It's hard to be receptive to it if they are caught up with all those external pressures.

If anything, those pressures may make being receptive to such communication harder than it should be. It would also be easier if we as humans didn't feel the need to have to read up on everything to get the answers, but instead believed in our own capability of getting it right.

It's not a judgement, just an observation.