Most parents at one point or another have been told that they must teach their baby to “self soothe”. It’s one of the biggest talking points in sleep training marketing (propaganda, that is).
Where did this belief come from? Can you really teach a baby to self soothe? And if you can, can it be taught by leaving them alone to cry?
Let’s dive in.
Self soothing was a term originally coined by Dr. Tom Anders during a research study. It was used as a descriptor or label of a group of babies who either:
- Woke and then returned to sleep without signalling or
- Woke, signalled, and their parents did not respond to them so they eventually fell back asleep
It was never meant to describe a process of self soothing, or self regulation, and there is no evidence that any regulatory process occurred in the babies who were labeled as “self soothers’. The sleep training industry has run with this term which was only meant to be a label for a group of observed behaviors, and they use it to tell parents that they must teach their baby the skill of self soothing. How do they say this is taught? The solution is usually some form of non-responsive sleep training, or leaving your baby alone to cry or fuss, whether for just a few minutes at a time, or full on cry it out. (How do babies really sleep in the first year? Grab this freebie to find out.)
I think it’s important to clarify that the more accurate name of the skill that is being discussed in this context is “self regulation”, which is the process of calming down from a dysregulated or upset state. From now on, I will refer to it as such- self-regulation. Here’s what you need to know about self-regulation:
Babies cannot self-regulate. They are designed, instead, to co-regulate with the support and presence of a calm, responsive caregiver. Simply put, when we co-regulate with a baby or child, they are essentially “borrowing” some of our calm which helps them to calm down, or regulate.
Leaving a baby alone to cry when they are dysregulated does not teach them any valuable or important lesson or skill. When a baby eventually falls asleep after crying for minutes or hours, it is actually because their brain is shutting down to preserve energy. This is not evidence of any skill being learned, and there is no evidence that a regulatory process has occurred!
So, if we can’t teach babies to self-regulate by leaving them alone to “figure it out”, how do they learn?
The good news is that we are teaching them everyday when we show up for them. That’s right!
When we show up to co-regulate with our child, we are modeling self-regulation, and it is with thousands and thousands and years and years of consistent, co-regulatory experiencing with loving and responsive caregivers that a child learns how to self-regulate independently.
This is beautiful news! It means that no longer do you need to be fearful of doing exactly what every fiber of your being is telling you to do- responding to your crying, upset baby. That is exactly what they need in that moment, and not only are you not impeding them from learning the skill of self-regulation, but you are actually teaching it to them!
Keep showing up for your children, parents. It’s exactly what they need.
Do you need responsive sleep support? Grab the Infant Foundations eCourse– designed to give you the foundational knowledge and tools to navigate any challenge that comes your way in the first year of life, and it aligns with your intuition. Or, if you prefer individualized support, check out our 1:1 support services here.
