“Your baby needs to learn to self-soothe.” It is one of those phrases that sounds so established that we rarely stop to ask what it actually means.
Sometimes self-soothing means falling asleep without being fed, rocked, held or otherwise helped. Sometimes it means waking during the night and returning to sleep without signalling for you. And sometimes the term is used as though it describes something much bigger: a baby’s ability to regulate their own emotions and nervous system.
Those are not the same thing. That distinction matters, because once they are bundled together, a very persuasive story emerges: if you always help your baby fall asleep, they will not learn to self-soothe; if they cannot self-soothe, they will keep waking and calling for you; and unless you teach independent sleep now, you may interfere with the development of an important lifelong skill.
I cannot find good evidence for that story. Babies do gradually become capable of doing more for themselves. Sleep changes enormously during the first years of life, and self-regulation develops too. But falling asleep without another person’s help is not the same thing as emotional self-regulation, and there is no developmental deadline by which every baby needs to do it.
First, babies wake
This is the part of the self-soothing conversation that is surprisingly easy to miss.Babies who fall asleep independently still wake. Videosomnographic research — observing babies during sleep rather than relying only on whether their parents noticed a waking — has found that most babies wake during the night across the first year. In one study following babies at three, six, nine and twelve months, most woke at every age studied. Even at twelve months, approximately half typically received parental help after waking.¹
So “sleeping through” does not necessarily mean remaining continuously asleep for an uninterrupted block of many hours. Sometimes it means waking and not signalling. That is an important difference.
If one baby wakes, moves around quietly and falls asleep again while another wakes and cries for a parent, we are observing two different behaviours. We cannot conclude from those behaviours alone that the first baby’s nervous system has acquired an emotional-regulation ability that the second baby’s has not.
One baby returned to sleep without signalling. The other asked for help. That is what we actually know.
Self-soothing is not one developmental skill
Think about everything that can be hidden inside the phrase.
A baby might:
- fall asleep alone at bedtime;
- fall asleep while breastfeeding but return to sleep independently after some night wakings;
- fall asleep in someone’s arms and sleep for a long stretch;
- fall asleep independently but signal several times during the night;
- wake, make noises, move around and return to sleep;
- wake and immediately call for a familiar person.
Which one is “self-soothing”?
The answer depends on how the term is being used. This is why I prefer more precise language. If we mean falling asleep without parental help, we can say that. If we mean returning to sleep after waking without signalling, we can say that too. Neither needs to be turned into evidence of a baby’s emotional maturity.
Regulation begins between people
A newborn cannot regulate their body and emotional state in the way an older child or adult can. Early regulation is deeply interpersonal. Babies experience regulation through familiar bodies, voices, touch, movement, feeding, sucking and relationships. Over time, children gradually develop increasing regulatory capacities, but that process unfolds across years and in continuing interaction with the people caring for them. Research following self-regulation across early childhood likewise describes progressive development rather than a capacity that suddenly appears once a baby learns to fall asleep alone.²
In other words, babies begin life co-regulating. That is not a failure to self-regulate. It is where human self-regulation begins. Your newborn calms when held. Months later, your baby may settle when they hear your voice. A toddler may come to you after becoming frightened. An older child may be able to tell you what is wrong. Gradually, what once required your whole body may require only your presence, then your words, and eventually perhaps very little from you at all. Children gradually need us differently. That is development.
But aren’t babies supposed to learn to fall asleep independently?
Some babies do fall asleep with very little help surprisingly early. If yours does, wonderful. Others strongly prefer feeding, sucking, movement, contact or someone’s presence for much longer. That does not mean development has stalled.
I cannot find evidence that babies need to be taught to fall asleep without responsive help in order to develop healthy sleep, healthy emotional regulation or eventual independence.
That statement is important, but so is what it doesn’t say. It does not mean you must help your child to sleep for as long as they request it. It does not mean every family should bedshare, breastfeed to sleep, rock, carry or lie beside a child. And it does not mean families are forbidden from using behavioural sleep interventions.
It means something much narrower: Independent settling is not a developmental examination your baby has to pass.
What about “drowsy but awake”?
You may have been advised to put your baby down drowsy but awake so that they learn to fall asleep in the same place in which they will later wake. You can certainly try it. Some babies tolerate it beautifully. If you put your baby down sleepy, they wriggle for a few minutes and drift off, you have discovered a very convenient settling option. Keep it.
But drowsy but awake is better understood as one possible settling strategy than as a developmental requirement or an insurance policy against future night waking. Research finding associations between settling practices and later sleep behaviour does not establish the neat causal sequence often attached to this advice.
If your baby becomes wide awake the moment their back touches the mattress, you have not failed the drowsy-but-awake test. There is no test.
Doesn’t parental presence cause night waking?
There is research behind some of this advice, and I think it is important not to pretend otherwise. A classic observational study of 122 nine-month-old babies found an association between parental presence at sleep onset and parent-reported night waking.³ Other longitudinal work has also found associations between parental presence or settling practices and later reported sleep-regulation outcomes.⁴
That is useful information. But association does not establish the direction of causation. Perhaps parental settling contributes to night-time signalling for some babies. Perhaps babies who are more likely to wake and signal naturally elicit more parental involvement. Perhaps temperament, feeding, development and family practices interact.
Longitudinal research by Burnham and colleagues supports exactly this more transactional picture: infant and parental factors interact in shaping night-time behaviour rather than there being a simple one-directional parent → baby causal pathway.⁵
So I would be cautious about turning an observed association into: You caused your baby’s waking by helping them fall asleep. The evidence does not allow us to make that claim so simply.
If I always respond, won’t my baby become dependent on me?
Your baby is dependent on you. That is not something responsive parenting created. Human babies arrive extraordinarily immature and dependent. They rely on other people for food, temperature regulation, safety, movement and emotional regulation. Dependence, proximity and signalling are expected features of infancy. The more interesting question is whether responding to that dependence prevents independence from developing later.
I cannot find evidence that it does. Independence is not created by removing every form of help as early as possible. Development itself changes what children can do and what they need from us. The baby who needs to be rocked today may not need rocking next year. The toddler who wants you lying beside them may one day tell you to leave their room.
What your child needs now is not a reliable prediction of what they will need forever.
But my baby needs me every single time
And perhaps that is exhausting. This is where I think conversations about normal infant sleep sometimes fail parents from the opposite direction. Telling you that your baby’s behaviour may be developmentally normal does not magically give you eight hours of sleep. A baby can be sleeping within a biologically and developmentally normal range while their family is struggling badly with the consequences. Both can be true.
Perhaps your baby wakes eight times and only breastfeeding works. Perhaps they need forty minutes of bouncing every time. Perhaps you can settle them easily but transferring them to the cot fails repeatedly. Perhaps you are returning to work. Perhaps you are the only person doing nights and you simply cannot continue.
Those are real problems. We just do not have to redefine your baby’s need for you as a developmental deficit before we are allowed to solve them.
You can change sleep without teaching “self-soothing”
Suppose rocking your baby worked beautifully for six months and now your back hurts. You can change it. Perhaps another caregiver begins doing some settling. Perhaps you gradually introduce lying together, stroking, singing or another form of rhythmic support. Perhaps you change only bedtime first and leave naps alone. Perhaps your older baby protests because they preferred the old arrangement, and you remain with them through that protest.
Responsive does not have to mean never changing anything your child dislikes.
It means that your child does not have to manage the change alone. And sometimes the most effective change is not even the settling method. Perhaps another caregiver takes the first part of the night. Perhaps daytime sleep or bedtime timing needs adjusting. Perhaps you change where everyone sleeps. Sometimes several small changes together make the night dramatically more manageable.
The goal does not have to be: My baby must learn to need nothing from me. The goal can be: How can we make sleep workable for everyone in this family?
What if I do want my baby to fall asleep independently?
That is a perfectly reasonable goal too. There is a difference between saying babies do not developmentally require independent settling and saying parents are not allowed to want it. You might want your partner to manage bedtime. You might need an evening to yourself. You might simply prefer your child to fall asleep with less hands-on help.
You can experiment. Your baby’s response gives you information. Some babies adapt easily to a small change. Others need much more gradual support. Older babies and toddlers may actively protest because they know exactly what they prefer. You can decide how much change feels right for your family.
What I would like to remove from that decision is fear: fear that you must do it now or your baby will never learn; fear that feeding, holding or responding has already damaged their sleep; fear that dependence today predicts dependence forever. You have more room than that.
Crying while supported is not the same as being left to cry
This becomes especially important with older babies and toddlers. Sometimes changing a familiar way of falling asleep makes a child angry or upset. A toddler who has always breastfed to sleep may strongly object when you decide to cuddle them instead. A child who wants another story may cry when you say stories are finished.
Responsive parenting does not require you to prevent every difficult feeling. You can hold a boundary and remain emotionally and physically available. You can say no to another feed, another story or another hour of rocking and stay beside your child while they are upset.
That is different from deliberately withholding your presence or response in order to teach your child not to signal. The presence of crying alone does not tell us what is happening relationally. Context matters.
So does my baby need to learn to self-soothe?
I would first ask what you mean by self-soothe. If you mean: Will my baby eventually become capable of regulating more of their own behaviour and emotions? Yes. That is part of development. If you mean: Will my baby eventually need me differently from the way they need me now? Almost certainly. If you mean: Must I teach my baby to fall asleep without responsive help now, otherwise they will fail to develop healthy sleep, emotional regulation or independence?
I cannot find evidence for that claim. And if what you really mean is: I cannot keep doing bedtime and nights like this. Can something change? Then yes. That is a completely different question. And usually a much more useful place to start.
References & further reading
- Goodlin-Jones, B. L., Burnham, M. M., Gaylor, E. E., & Anders, T. F. (2001). Night waking, sleep-wake organization, and self-soothing in the first year of life. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 22(4), 226–233. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004703-200108000-00003. Videosomnographic observations showed substantial individual variation; most infants woke during the night, and approximately half of the 12-month-olds still typically received parental intervention after waking.
- Wu, Q., Feng, X., Hooper, E. G., Gerhardt, M., Ku, S., & Chan, M. H.-M. (2021). A developmental hierarchical-integrative perspective on the emergence of self-regulation: A replication and extension. Child Development, 92(5), e997–e1016. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13559.
- Adair, R., Bauchner, H., Philipp, B., Levenson, S., & Zuckerman, B. (1991). Night waking during infancy: Role of parental presence at bedtime. Pediatrics, 87(4), 500–504. The observational study found an association between parental presence at sleep onset and parent-reported night waking but could not establish a causal mechanism.
- Henderson, J. M. T., France, K. G., Owens, J. L., & Blampied, N. M. (2020). Longitudinal study of infant sleep development: Early predictors of sleep regulation across the first year. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 19(4), 480–492. https://doi.org/10.1080/15402002.2020.1772261.
- Burnham, M. M., Goodlin-Jones, B. L., Gaylor, E. E., & Anders, T. F. (2002). Nighttime sleep-wake patterns and self-soothing from birth to one year of age: A longitudinal intervention study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43(6), 713–725. The authors support a transactional model in which infant and parental factors interact in the development of night-time behaviour.