08/03/2022
I had a debate with a friend of mine. He was comparing his last child to his first and told me “ My oldest could self soothe to sleep, the younger one gets more and more upset unless he’s fed” ⠀
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I told him that his other child probably wasn’t self soothing but actually already calm ,relaxed and happened to be tired all at the right times, that he had a calmer temperament & was actually self settling not self soothing. My friend was adamant...... til I broke it down to him, here’s what I explained.
To be able to calm yourself down from being upset or distressed you need to be capable of rational thought. You need intellectual reasoning skills to talk yourself down when your stress levels run high. You can say to yourself “ it’s ok that was highly annoying or irritating but it’s over now “ or maybe something similar, you can then do things to help yourself get calm, like take deep breathes, do some gentle exercise or pour yourself a glass of wine. But our little ones aren’t able to do what we would do when stressed or upset.
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Babies toddlers and even teens can struggle with calming themselves down because they can’t rationally tell themselves that everything will be ok. ⠀
Babies can learn to self settle.....fall asleep on their own without the need or support of anyone else but in order to do that they need to be in a calm state first. Some babies are great at this others need help to get the stage where they can self settle but take it from me your baby CANNOT self soothe so please question any “expert” who is adamant that they can.
