Many of our videos come from a request from our viewers and this is one of those.
Cam a toddler learn how to self-soothe without a pacifier?
-I have a lot of experience with this with kids and so, we are going to outline several
tips that will help you help your child learn to self-soothe.
So, let's jump right in.
We have four children but we have raised into adulthood and they are now raising our grandchildren
which is really fun.
We have had the whole gamut across all our children and their children, plus all my friends.
Because let's be real, we talk as moms about how our children are self-soothing or not
or when they go to bed.
So we have a lot of experience with this and we have all the gamut with kids thumbsucking
and binkies and not and whatnot.
I think the biggest thing is that there is no right or wrong way.
- Yes, thank you.
In fact, let's get out of the guilt and shame.
There's plenty of mommy guilt.
- Oh my goodness, so much of it that we put out ourselves and we keep on other people
too.
-It's not something you have to do but noticed that other people gonna have opinions about
them and some of the people who ask us question in our parenting coaching groups are saying,
"Well, my sister says that she shouldn't be using a binky anymore."
"My aunt told me that pacifiers are just because I'm being lazy as a mom."
Oh please, and if you are the aunt don't talk to me.
Enough with the guilt and shame.
There's no right or wrong way to do this.
In fact, you know what I was now seeing on Tikton the other day.
There's a mom who suggested a solution to the pacifier problem and I'm like, "I'm doing
a video on that.
I've got it to watch."
So, I went and watch what it was.
She put 10 pacifiers in the crib.
Problem solved.
Her problem was her child waking up looking for a pacifier and can't find it.
Well, with 10 in there, kids find the pacifier.
So she was not trying to get her child self-soothe without it.
She just wants it more convenient to soothe with it.
That's totally fine, that's totally legitimate.
- Now that being said, if this is something you really do want to teach your child or
help your child learn how to self-soothe we've got some ideas.
- Absolutely, so, let's acknowledged something else right up front here.
We train each other, we do.
-Even a young child is training you believe it or not.
I mean, of course.
-Yes, here's a good example, we've got other videos talked about some of the early childhood
issues that we face.
One of those that we did is on sleeping and of the biggest problems that we run into at
night time and sleeping routines is that children become custom to being held or rocked or load
off to sleep in the arms of their loving mother and how sweet is that, and that child is training
the mother to hold them and cuddle them and rock them.
Because what happens when you put them on the crib?
Mom doesn't like that, picks them back up, and what happens when you pick up the child?
They're cool, they're good with that.
So we train each other.
Noticed that you're being trained as a parent to handle your child in certain ways and the
pacified is one of those ways.
For us to change that means that we have to be willing to tolerate some displeasure, discomfort,
some disconnect.
Because we've already trained each other this is the routine.
This is how we do it and when we change that up there's going to be some push back.
Understanding that we do train each other.
There's this concept in psychology called conditioning and the conditioning has to do
with a training process that happens in our mind where we link up this thing with that
thing.
There are cues that show up in our environment.
The classic study was done by a psychologist named Dr. Ivan Pavlov.
Now, do you remember Pavlov's batch from graduate school?
What he did.
What he proves with his experiment with these dogs is that he could train the dogs to salivate.
Which is not a natural response to the stimulus he gave them which was the dinging of the
bell.
Ding, the dog salivates.
How did he do that?
He did it by the constant pairing of "ding" puff of meat powdering to the dog's mouth
which does cause them to salivate and so they're like... and then "ding" puff of meat powder,
salivate.
Ding, puff of meat powder, salivate.
Ding... salivate, skip the puff of meat.
Now, this show improved that a dog can be conditioned that a certain kind of a response
give them a certain stimulus.
Now, why is that important?
Because were going to change up the stimuli.
- Right and one of the things that we wanna do is we wanna establish a bedtime routine
that has many cues leading towards bedtime.
- Bath time, pajamas go on two stories, off to bed. for example, not the same bedtime
routine you should have.
I'm just using that as an example for something that you might use and each of those elements
now becomes a cue for that child to start winding down.
- When you're establishing these different cues and you're maybe removing one of the
other things that have been there, it's not just a binky.
You're gonna have to be okay with a couple of nights of discomfort.
Coz they're gonna fight against a little bit.
So be ready for a couple of nights of work.
But that's okay, and then as you go along you can even changed up little bits of those
cues.
I say this because I've seen some kids, we want to teach our kids flexibility.
That's part of self-soothing is being a flexible person.
Instead of being regimented, it has to be this way...
So we're gonna put in those cues and were gonna have multiple cues that's bedtime and
maybe, one night mom reads the story and another night dad reads the story.
So, there's still some built-in flexibility as well.
-The other thing that the research is showing and a lot of clinical experience back this
up.
If we are training our children to require certain forms of soothing like the pacifier
or might be the rocking or the cuddling in order to fall asleep.
We can change that up by waiting until even with a very young child or an infant.
Waiting until they're drowsy but not quite asleep and putting them in bed.
The tiredness, the drowsiness, actually helps that child to feel more like falling asleep
without the props that we're necessary before and it does require some training and some
conditioning and so, we have to be ready for some of the pushback.
Especially when it's related to sleep time soothing.
If they can learn to fall asleep in the context that doesn't include the things that you're
trying to win them off.
Then that tends to have better fast.
-You know as we said, there might be a few moments or nights of discomfort and I guess
that's... let's count on it right.
So, we need to, remember it's not our job to make sure that they're never upset.
Coz they're probably gonna be upset a little bit as they learn this self-soothing.
-And for you to just say that Vicky.
It became very apparent to me that this where we get stuck sometimes.
If you think our job is to make sure that our kids are never upset then they will manipulate
us with their upsetness and they don't do it religiously.
I don't think kids think like, "How can I manipulate my mother?".
Yeah, maybe later.
But they're not thinking that, it just practically works for them, and then they train you as
the parent to attend to whatever it is that their demand is.
When really they don't need it and so, the resistance.
It's not your job to make sure that they never feel upset.
Does that come as a relief to anybody?
Vicky and I have a few more points to share with you.
But before we do, would you take a moment right now to click on that subscribe button.
That way, you get to be a more positive parent more consistently.
-Here's one of the things that I think is hard about this topic is that sometimes are
we teaching our child to self-soothe or we just want them to stop crying so we can go
sleep?
I think we got to be clear about that.
I remember one time when one of our child had a really hard time sleeping and I just
wanted a whole night of sleep and so I was like, "You do whatever you have to, to keep
him quiet.
I don't care if he's self-soothing or you soothing him.
Whatever it needs coz I need my night sleep."
So, I got myself in a place that I could be so that I could show for him to help him learn
to self-soothe.
So, I'm just saying, this is a really charged topic.
Maybe you need to make sure you're in the right place coz there will be some nights
of discomfort in this.
So, I had to get myself in a place where I should be ready to teach him to self-soothe.
-Realize, we're not asking you to put your children in harm's way.
But your brain is gonna play tricks on you and if they are hauling and screaming you're
gonna think that they're not okay.
When really that's what babies do and you can tolerate more of that than you think.
Actually, I'm going to invite you to consider this.
Tolerate it about twice as long as you think you can and it won't goes long as your fear.
Vicky, I think you discovered that you're [inaudible] around that time of our lives
too?
You're not neglecting your child.
You're not putting them in danger in harm's way.
You're already establishing a safe secure environment for them.
They're fine, they don't know that.
But they will learn that and as you train your child and your child trains you.
Then we can all get to a place that a little more peaceful and maybe even free from some
of the props that we use like that pacifier.
We are all in this together.
I just realized that we were here having conversation with our videographer team.
We've got 2 moms here and they're engaged with us, asking, "What about this?
What about that?".
So, I just noticed that as we were responding to that.
That's great stuff and that's why we kept it for you.
- I'm just thinking all the times when he's like, "Your son's okay", and I was like, "How
does he know he's not in the closet?
"How is he in the bedroom with the door closed while he's screaming?
Maybe I need to go and soothe him."
It just brings up so many things.
Because mom's, this is a hard land.
-It is okay for kids to be upset.
We get to tolerate that it's not our job to make sure that they never feel upset.
What is our job?
-To love them no matter what and even if.
-Let that sink in for a minute.
It's your job to love them.
It's not to make sure that they don't feel upset and you can't and if you try to you're
going to get into sticky situations where your children train you and they'll do that
in a bit anyway.
Love them no matter what and even if, that's the bottom line.
This parenting thing can become challenging and were talking about one aspect of that
in today's video.
We've got some other resources available and ready to roll for you.
In fact, it's queuing up next, the next video for you to watch is five things that every
new parent needs to know.
Jump on that one next.
We're going to power up your parenting.