i thought it was pretty clear i was referring to a trend of letting kids cry themselves to sleep and not just a one-time thing–that’s the general point of a technique, it’s a tool you’d use again and again because you think it’s working.
“parents can tell the difference between a hunger cry and fussing cry”
i mean. i’ve been around for the infancy-stage of several children and i’ve never seen parents know immediately the difference between tenor of cries?? the general consensus on the reason why babies cry is that they need something or they are upset by something. babies are sensitive. smells, sounds and other stimulus we can’t always pinpoint can bother babies–the answer to this is not ignoring their cries.
“the baby will get accustomed to that and would not want anything less for future affect regulation”
i don’t think i agree with this, and i have not yet encountered any literature that would support this. in fact, the literature i have would suggest the opposite.
Schore (2003) describes the most important things for an infant’s regulatory development as:
The infant attachment cycle literally describes trust building as something that happens when a baby has a need–>cries–>and that need is met.
“the baby will get accustomed to that and would not want anything less for future affect regulation. which isnt a good thing in the long run because as adults, they’ll have a really hard time regulating stress and negative emotions.”
again, i haven’t encountered any literature which suggests this. i have only read the opposite.
According to Hughes, 2009 and Siegel and Hartzel 2003, secure attachment between children and their PCGs results in neuroprotective responses which are akin to stress inoculations–resulting in INCREASED brain growth factors which lead to increased resilience and social competency. We know that when babies’ needs are not met they actually grow less resilient, less socially competent.
“learning to self soothe is a really important thing for a childs development”
All the literature i have read so far, the professionals i have heard from so far, do not believe self-soothing is a thing. According to both Teicher (2015) and Silberg (n.d.) and Gill (2015) infants do not “self-soothe” and their stopping of crying is not a some kind of result to self-soothing, but rather a result of their shutting down as a regulatory response.
“The only way a baby will “shut down” and have “that trauma housed in their body” is if they have continuously been neglected and have a disorganized attachment to their caregiver. They will literally dissociate but ive only seen it happen when the caregiver doesnt know how to deal with infant distress and instead will violate the infants personal space until the baby cant take it anymore and have no other option but to shut down.”
again, if you don’t neglect your baby to begin with, disorganized attachment can be avoided and babies won’t shut down as a protective response–but to avoid this you have to give your baby attention when they cry. Also Gill (2015) DOES describe somatic shut down as a response to being left to cry.
Miller, Lamport (2010) also report that rapid response to infants crying (holding, touching, etc) leads to LESS stress in infants, less fussiness, less crying/expressions of distress.
would love to see the literature you’re using to suggest that “self-soothing” builds resilience. please send me a DM!! the only research ive seen so far is an RCT with just 1 year of follow up and only 43 babies.
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