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How may the interactions of a baby with its environment give rise to discrete mental categories, such as objects and persons within a shared spatio-temporal frame? Which factors contribute to bringing about such representations? Does time participate in this process? And how is time itself represented? We adopt A. Bullinger’s point of view according to which the decisive element in this process is that sensorial signals produced by the captors of the organism are integrated with the tonic signals generated by its motricity. The link between these two types of signals will be significant for the progression of both instrumental behavior and representation. The human environment plays a specific role: the baby finds in the availability of the caregivers a multimodal sensorial mirror that replies in a synchronous and isomorphic way to its mimics, postural adjustments, and movements. When such interactions—and especially tonic dialog—cannot be inscribed in the nursing project, one may expect a loss of opportunities regarding the baby’s cognitive development and further autonomy.