The study of the subjective experience of early childhood educators has been predominantly circumscribed to the talk content, without delving into more intimate experiential aspects of their professional experience. Considering that the need for an immediate response to infants is a characteristic of the initial classroom, this study aims to describe the subjective references of these professionals in educational situations of a contingency and affective nature. A number of 30 early childhood educators participated, through a semi-structured interview within a phenomenological approach, giving way to the construction of 11 categories of emerging content: eight of a semantic nature and three meta-schemes of the sequential appearance of the content. The proclivity of these professionals to act quickly and intuitively stands out; follow preestablished procedures; constantly and emotionally feel, reinforce and contain the infants; identify the benefits and tensions when communicating with the family; among others. The findings account for the ways of verbally explaining their professional actions in the face of the contingent situation with an affective connotation, from which the strategies that are commonly used emerge. Some of the contributions to training in socio-affective skills in initial education are outlined, as well as new lines of research. © 2022 Authors. All rights reserved.