“Hi… um, I’m worried because my six-week-old doesn’t know how to self-soothe. He needs me to hold him and if I let him cry, he can’t self-soothe. What am I doing?”
To read most of the sleep tips, it seems that teaching the child to self-regulate is the most important task parents– and if parents do not introduce this skill from the beginning, their child can struggle for years. Parents are warned that rocking or feeding the baby while sleeping can impair the baby’s ability to do things on its own. Expert advice suggests that crying (even loudly or for a reasonable amount of time) and then going to sleep means that the baby has “learned to self-soothe”.
It’s amazing when you look at it from a developmental perspective. Nowhere else in parenting do we tell parents that the only way a child can learn is through education absence from help We don’t give a child a bicycle and say: “I can’t help you, otherwise you will never learn.” No—parents hold on for dear life, then slowly let go as the child finds its balance. They are completely non-sticky and non-sticky. It’s a dance between capacity and growth.
Here’s what self-help advice always misses: development and capacity. The ability to tolerate and manage anxiety is not given, but grows with the brain nervous system (Gee, 2016).
The theory behind self-regulation advice
Self-help advice has roots behavior– a theory from the 1920s that states that children arrive as blank slates, entirely through which behaviors are reinforced. If you respond to a crying baby, you think you are teaching them that crying “works”. The problem is that behaviorism doesn’t consider biology, development, or temperament relevant. It puts too much pressure on parenting behavior and ignores most things that actually affect behavior.
What “self-regulation” really requires
Self-regulation means being able to do something for yourself that will help you move from anxiety to calmness. It is not a single skill or transition – it requires the ability to detect and assess stress, access to a coping strategy (either self-directed or caretaker) and evaluate if it worked. Adults have many options: go for a walk, call a friend or go to the movies – all of these require mature cognitive, attention and motor skills.
Infant brains are still building the architecture that makes each of these possible. The younger the child, the less able they are. A newborn child cannot put his hand to his mouth. Other than this one strategy, they have no other options. So falling asleep is not technically self-regulating; this is their only alternative.
Developing self-regulation skills, month by month
The ability to manage anxiety follows a specific developmental path.
In the first three months Children are almost completely in control of their physiology. Around six to eight weeks, the visual cortex comes online, and babies become much more alert—and much more immersed (Chugani, 1998; Shore, 2003). Coping options are simply by turning away, sucking, closing your eyes or to sleep (Kopp, 1989).
Up to three or four monthsSocial smiles appear, and children have a little more voluntary control attention and mobility (Sroufe, 1997). They can briefly orient themselves, but only when anxiety is low. When crying exceeds a certain threshold, even these limited tools become offline (Kopp, 1989).
Six months to a year Frontal lobe development allows children to make predictions, understand cause and effect, and shift attention more clearly (Schore, 2003; Sroufe, 1997). They can find a pacifier, cuddle their loved one, and remember that the parent who left the room is coming back. The repertoire is expanding – but it takes time.
More than a year the ability to deliberately modify behavior and manage high levels of anxiety continues and matures. Brain structures are necessary for authenticity emotional regulation it takes a few years to really develop.
Parents are not crutches. They are infrastructure.
Here’s a paradigm shift supported by decades of developmental research: In the first year, parental reassurance is not a problem for the child’s adjustment. is child regulation.
Essential reading for parents
Caregivers serve as what researchers call “external organizers” of a child’s development stress-response system (Spangler et al., 1994). When parents respond to anxiety that exceeds their child’s capacity, they are not “creating” or breaking bad habits. They act as a guide through regulation—showing the child what it feels like to go from angry to calm, from angry to calm, within the context of attachment. Helps support and regulate the child’s nervous system. This is a strength, not a “problem”.
This does not mean that parents have to respond to every cry. The important thing is to step in when the sadness is overwhelming this the child can manage this point in development.
I go out on a limb and say: There is no learning when a child is anxious and does not receive help to calm down. Learning really happens when frustration is managed.
Temperament makes all the difference
Not all children work with the same window of tolerance. Research consistently shows that temperamentally sensitive or reactive children have different physiological responses to stress—higher cortisol, more reactivity, and more difficulty reducing their anxiety (Calkins et al., 2002; Fox & Calkins, 2003). For these infants, what may register as a mild disappointment to another child may be a significant and difficult event (Williamson & Anzalone, 2000). If your baby is growing faster and harder to soothe, it’s neurobiology – not “self-soothing.”
What this means for parents now
There is nothing wrong with soothing your baby when needed. Research on the prevention of sleep problems through early self-regulation training shows only modest and short-term gains (Fangupo et al., 2021; Stremler et al., 2013). Self-regulation skills come naturally as the brain develops, and parents deal with manageable amounts of frustration during the first few years of life.
Let’s shift our focus from “self-regulation” to that setting-there is peace in the relationship, not in isolation.
