A Baby's Ability to Self-Soothe

Our Readers Ask:

I currently have a 2 month old baby. Although I am a stay at home mother, I tend to the house and also pay the bills, which is time consuming. I love my baby and obviously do not want to leave him alone, or upset him while I am working. For this reason, I am wondering when and how does a baby develop the capacity to soothe himself? Is there anything I can do to help the process? Thanks!

This is a great question because there is a common misconception that young infants should be encouraged to self-soothe. While the ability to self soothe starts in infancy, over the course of the first few months of life, a baby must first develop a sense of his mother taking care of him, from which he will create an internal model of soothing and care taking. Babies develop the ability to amuse themselves for brief periods of time around 2-4 months, at which time Mother is often surprised to come into her baby’s nursery and find him awake, looking around his crib, and maybe even babbling to himself or making cooing sounds. Later on, from about 4-6 months, this process can also include a developing interest in his feet and hands, reaching for things in and around his crib, and turning himself over. Eventually, a baby’s ability to explore his environment, and entertain himself without his mother in view, is wonderful and rewarding evidence that he has experienced his mothering as “good enough,” and now, he doesn't need his mother to be there immediately at all times.

However, although the ability to self-soothe may be emerging during the first 6 months, you should neither depend on this, nor try to foster it. Babies as young as yours will not benefit from being left, even temporarily, to “figure it out.” They will become better self-soothers by reliably being soothed by you in this early period. Steadily, over time, as your baby begins to identify himself as a person, separate from you (6 months and beyond), he integrates his experience of being cared for into an ability to do the same thing for himself.

I appreciate how difficult this can be, but try to bring him wherever you go, in his bassinet or on some blankets, or perhaps you could carry him in a sling or pack as you work. Also, talking to him while you work is a great way to connect with your infant. Babies love to hear the sound of Mother's voice, which they recognize more quickly than they recognize Mother's face. And, check on him frequently during his "awake" time, smiling and cooing to him--it will pay off in the end!

--Dr. S and Dr. G

Your Baby's Learning Patterns

Our Readers Ask:

I've noticed that you refer to patterns and routines a lot when you talk about infants. I, myself, prefer variety, and have presumed that it would be a good idea to keep changing things up to keep my little one amused and interested, rather than bore him with the “same old, same old.” Am I missing something?

Not exactly. Human beings are “programmed” to flourish on both predictable patterns and on novelty. From early childhood through old age, we thrive on regular times for eating, sleeping, moving our bowels, and recreation that are determined by our biological systems and monitored by hormones and brain chemicals. These systems tell us when we are hungry, tired, and even what time of day we should do something as specific as strength training versus cardio training! One exception is that infants thrive equally well during their first months regardless of whether they are fed on a schedule or are fed on demand.

Our minds begin organizing in the early stage of toddler hood, and you can see this take place in both language development and in play. Children learn language patterns from repeating sounds they hear from their parents—at birth, a child can learn any language, or even multiple languages, all based on what she hears in her environment.

However, the ability to learn a language is embedded in the brain, and is just one component of a child's innate expanding mental organization of her experience. Similarly, at about the middle of a toddler's second year of life, you can see another example of the organic momentum toward "organization" in the development of a new kind of play. Typically, at about this age, children have moved away from their fascination with putting toys into their mouths, or dumping out their toy bins, and have begun assembling their toys together in “collections,” lining them up, or grouping them together.

You can see this as well in animal life, whether your dog is collecting bones in his bed or trying to herd your "family" together. So, with all due respect to our genetic endowment, we, as parents, also realize that infants need to learn patterns and rhythms of daily life so that they can feel safe, can learn, and can have a basis from which to reach outside of their patterns and learn new things.

Herein lies the importance of novelty. All human beings are programmed to respond to“curiosity” or “novelty” above all other factors in any given situation. This is apparent to you when you can distract your baby or 5-year-old with something new—a new toy, a new experience, a new expression on your face, or a new change of scenery.

In fact, we rely on this to soothe the tantruming 2-year-old, or the tantruming 7-year-old,for that matter. “Changing the subject” by some sudden introduction of novelty almost always works for any one, of any age. And, as you may have experienced,the “new" thing doesn’t often work a second time, or you'll get an “I know what you're up to!” reaction from your child. Or, if the experience wasn’t pleasant, you won’t get an opportunity to try it again. So, novelty has to be used carefully and wisely to put it to best advantage.

We can see this difference demonstrated in quality of reaction in a baby or child when exposed to music or art. Through brain receptivity, babies instinctively prefer music that has regular rhythms, where the next beat can be anticipated, like Bach, Mozart, or popular music that has repetitive, predictable rhythms. Babies do not respond well to Prokofiev. Similarly, babies prefer some decoration, but not overstimulating decoration; they will enjoy having some toys or mobiles they can reach, but not so many that they cannot discriminate between the individual parts.

Adults, too, often feel more soothed by rhythmic music or paintings with familiar motifs,and are excited and stimulated by less predictable music and by demanding abstractions. Babies are notoriously fascinated by commercials on television because all commercials are pitched to the  brain’s unconscious receptivity to the repetitive patterns in the sounds and “beat” of the commercial.

Many of the truisms of child-rearing are predicated on our innate sense of the familiar versus the novel. For example, when we want to introduce a new food to a baby,we typically feed her only one new food at a time. The rationale for this is not only to keep an eye out for allergic reactions, but also because it is easier on the baby to add just one food to her repertoire to allow her to become acclimated to it before introducing another one.

As a final point, babies are fundamentally different from both adults and older children in that their concept of the world is changing literally every single day. It would be as if one day you could see only outlines of objects, then make out shapes the next, then discern colors, then to three dimensions, and then on to x-ray vision! You wouldn’t need the subject you were looking at to do anything dramatic to remain interesting, because the interest for you, as the beholder,lies in your rapidly changing capacity to behold.

Mothers can take some comfort in this. Instead of forcing yourself to provide novelty for your baby all the time, turn your attention to the small differences in how she reacts to the same things. And by all means, if she is bored by something, and is ready for a change herself, she will let you know!

--Dr. S & Dr. G