In recent decades, there has been substantial progress in the study of Early Childhood Development (ECD) from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives. Several authors acknowledge the contribution of Anthropology to the debate about ECD, in dialogue with psychology, neuroscience, education and medicine. These studies stress the importance of social contexts in regard to physical growth and later health issues. Anthropology emphasizes the notion that children´s development is driven by the interactions they have with those in their immediate environments and the activities in which children participate. In this sense, the importance given to the environment from an ecological perspective recognises the heuristic value of ethnographic studies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss the possibilities of interface between ethnography and disciplines that have traditionally studied childhood development. First, we review the existing disciplinary production in this field in Latin America, focussing on indigenous and peasant societies. Second, we analyze the main contributions ethnography can make in methodological terms. In relation to this, we discuss the challenges it faces in the context of interdisciplinary research. To conclude, we would reflect on the need to recover the ECD as an object of ethnographic study, as it was in the beginning of the discipline.