Teaching your baby to self soothe

Parent educator Sarah McCormick, CLE and Infant Toddler consultant Elsa Chahin as Baby Sleep Expert Kathy Sinclair answer questions such as "What is self-soothing?" and "How do you teach your baby to calm down when they are so little?"
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Teaching your baby to self soothe

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- [Sarah] Allowing a baby to self soothe is crucial in the first year. There are so many ways a baby can self soothe. It's thumb, it's fingers, pacies, lovies, mom's nipple, bottle. Allowing them access to their fingers while they sleep is a great way to help them how to sleep on their own. Pacies are also a helpful tool. Babies need non nutritive sucking in the first year to help regulate their nervous system. A pacie, a thumb, fingers all accomplish that.- There's nothing more gratifying for the baby then when he finds his own thumb. When the baby finds his own thumb, or sometimes it's these two fingers or a couple of fingers, start the origins or the beginnings of self soothing. The baby finds his own thumb and he can be consoled by himself. This can happen during the bed time, he decides when to put it in and when to take it out.- A baby's ability to self soothe in the first year is very limited before four months because they're not developmentally able and ready to self soothe. Between four and six months is a bit iffy. Sometimes they're able to, sometimes they're not. Just depending on their maturity. But after six months every child is able to self soothe. The easiest way to get them to learn how to self soothe is allowing the time to be able to self soothe. It's like crawling, you don't put your child on the ground and then they automatically crawl. They need time on the ground, they need time to play down there. Same as with self soothing, they need time in the crib to learn how to self soothe.- [Sarah] Lovies are a great way to self soothe as well. A transitional object like a soft small blanket, especially one that has mom's smell on it will help them to regulate their nervous system, will help them to fall asleep at night, and will help them to separate from you when you can't be there. Self soothing in infants increases overtime. Very little babies struggle to self soothe. And they get better and better and better as they go along. When babies become between three and six months, they're able to find their thumb, or their fingers, or their lovie and use it to soothe themselves. Very tiny babies still need their mom and dad self soothe.


Parent educator Sarah McCormick, CLE and Infant Toddler consultant Elsa Chahin as Baby Sleep Expert Kathy Sinclair answer questions such as "What is self-soothing?" and "How do you teach your baby to calm down when they are so little?"

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Baby Soothing

This is a collection of our best videos on the topic of Baby Soothing featuring Wendy Haldeman and Corky Harvey from Pump Station and Nurtury, Julie Wright, Michelle Kelman, Sarah McCormick, Elsa Chahin, Kathy Sinclair and other experts and parents. 


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Transcription: 

- [Sarah] Allowing a baby to self soothe is crucial in the first year. There are so many ways a baby can self soothe. It's thumb, it's fingers, pacies, lovies, mom's nipple, bottle. Allowing them access to their fingers while they sleep is a great way to help them how to sleep on their own. Pacies are also a helpful tool. Babies need non nutritive sucking in the first year to help regulate their nervous system. A pacie, a thumb, fingers all accomplish that.- There's nothing more gratifying for the baby then when he finds his own thumb. When the baby finds his own thumb, or sometimes it's these two fingers or a couple of fingers, start the origins or the beginnings of self soothing. The baby finds his own thumb and he can be consoled by himself. This can happen during the bed time, he decides when to put it in and when to take it out.- A baby's ability to self soothe in the first year is very limited before four months because they're not developmentally able and ready to self soothe. Between four and six months is a bit iffy. Sometimes they're able to, sometimes they're not. Just depending on their maturity. But after six months every child is able to self soothe. The easiest way to get them to learn how to self soothe is allowing the time to be able to self soothe. It's like crawling, you don't put your child on the ground and then they automatically crawl. They need time on the ground, they need time to play down there. Same as with self soothing, they need time in the crib to learn how to self soothe.- [Sarah] Lovies are a great way to self soothe as well. A transitional object like a soft small blanket, especially one that has mom's smell on it will help them to regulate their nervous system, will help them to fall asleep at night, and will help them to separate from you when you can't be there. Self soothing in infants increases overtime. Very little babies struggle to self soothe. And they get better and better and better as they go along. When babies become between three and six months, they're able to find their thumb, or their fingers, or their lovie and use it to soothe themselves. Very tiny babies still need their mom and dad self soothe.