The myth of self-settling
“Self-settling” is such a buzzword in the infant sleep space. But what does it even mean? What is “self-settling”?
A quick google search of the term takes me to several articles written by sleep trainers that suggest that self-settling is a “cognitive skill” that needs to be taught to infants from 4 months of age and that not teaching this crucial skill leads to sleep deprivation and an “over-reliance” on “negative sleep associations”.
In fact, this is often the goal of sleep training - to teach a child not to need their parent’s help to get back to sleep. To teach them to calm themselves without parental input overnight.
The term “self-settling” comes from a 1978 study by Dr Thomas Anders. He found that while most babies woke during the night, some cried to get their parent's attention, and some didn’t. He called these “signallers” and “self-settlers”. That’s it!
Follow-up studies expanded on this idea and have refined it, but it still comes down to the same thing: the observation that some children cry when they wake up, and some don’t. Some parents respond to their children, and some don’t, with parents checking on their children less as they get older.
This has led people to suggest that we can and should teach our signallers to be self-settlers. This isn’t a journal club, so I won’t go into all the follow-up studies in detail (as tempted as I am to do so). Suffice it to say, the studies are interesting, there are significant biases and confounders, and none of them shows that we can teach our signallers to become self-settlers.
The assumption put forward is that “self-soothing” is the same as “self-regulation”, i.e. a child’s ability to control their internal emotional state. However, infants and young children are developmentally unable to regulate their emotional state, instead relying on their primary caregivers to help them identify and process their emotions, a process called co-regulation. A child’s ability to self-regulate comes after YEARS of co-regulation.
Some babies wake overnight and don’t need parental input - they just lay quietly, grizzle or chatter, and then go back to sleep if left to their own devices. The key here is that these children are not distressed in the first place - they’re not soothing themselves; they didn’t need soothing in the first place.
Other children wake up and signal for parental help; they may be distressed on waking or become distressed if not tended to. These babies need their parent's or caregivers’ help to calm this distress.
If you have a baby that needs your help more often than not overnight, this is not a sign that you’ve done something wrong. Even if they used to sleep more, even if your friend’s baby is sleeping more, even if you’re exhausted.
You do not need to “teach” them to self-settle. You do not need to stop responding. You may need support to continue meeting their needs and/or to address any underlying issues contributing to frequent wakings. This is where I can help - during our consultations, we look at what is going on and help support you and your pēpi with your needs.
TL;DR Summary
Some babies can go back to sleep after rousing without requiring parental input; most babies under 12 months of age will need parental help at some point during the night.
You cannot teach a “signaller” to be a “self-soother”. You CAN teach a baby not to ask for help when they need it.
The only way to teach self-regulation is by co-regulation, i.e. children learn how to understand and regulate their emotions by us doing it with them.
Further reading:
https://evolutionaryparenting.com/distress-self-soothing-and-extinction-sleep-training/
https://raisedgood.com/self-soothing-biggest-con-new-parenthood/