The essay analyzes the unfolding of the National Common Curricular Base for Early Childhood Education. At first, it produces a historical synthesis of the documents that guided the Basic Education in Brazil and, later, it signals the advances and setbacks of the Base for Early Childhood Education. It is concluded that the document is ambiguous, since, at the same time as it presents advances for Early Childhood Education, especially, regarding the conception of childhood and the curricular organization, it brings backslides in its unfolding to the pedagogical practice, characterizing itself as a prescriptive document, which reduces the autonomy and authorship of teachers and children in curricular productions.