Let's talk about self-sothing. Self-sothing is often a term that people search or people assume means negative things and especially because often we talk about it in relation to babies and we think babies can't do things by themselves. So let's be clear right from the start that self-sothing does not mean leaving babies or young children alone to cry. That's not what it means. Self-sothing is in fact a form of self-regulation which is an imperative life skill. It's absolutely vital that we learn self-regulation. Self-sothing really is about being able to suit yourself, reassure yourself, help yourself to feel better and it's often really taken as a negative thing and people do think that in order for a child to self-serve means that you just ignore them and leave them to it. It couldn't be further from the truth. Actually you can teach this valuable in you know absolutely vital life skill and we do teach this to our children. We teach it to our children in many many other ways so it's a shame that it gets so misconstrued and gets some negative press really. So I want to talk a little bit about the difference now between self-sothing and actually homing it in on self-settling because self-settling is what I talk about a lot more and is a lot more relevant when we're talking about sleep because self-settling isn't the same as self-sothing. You can soothe yourself because you're upset about a child's snatched a toy from you and you can soothe yourself over that issue that's not anything to do asleep. Self-settling is when we talk about settling one's self-to-sleep. A lot of people don't realise that that is a learned skill. In other words it's not like breathing we just come out knowing how to do that. It's not something we just get. It's a learned skill it means we need to be taught it and it means we can unlearn it too. We can forget how to do it. It's a skill. A lot of people don't realise that particularly parents and situations where they don't realise they've taught their child how to self-settle. I didn't teach them anything they just got it they just sleep. They did teach them they just it was all very subconscious you know they probably just got into a really simple routine. The child took to that routine it was a good match it happened accidentally but they were still taught and so it is it's absolutely a learned skill other situations you'll find you know have done that three times and then you have a child number four and you think what was going wrong this time and actually nothing's going wrong it's just that the way and the approach and what you did with your other three children isn't the right match for this child and this child needs a slightly different approach and that can catch you out and I see that happen quite often. So you know in the same family and the same you know the same bloodline and the same parenting techniques can actually differ from child to child. So if your child needs a different approach if your child needs you to be for instance taking a more active approach rather than it being quite easy and accidental and yeah just a nice routine and it works for us maybe you know you have a child but it's a bit more difficult and and they need you need to really hone in on what exactly is right for that child. Let's ask this question why is it important for babies to learn to self-settle? Lots of parents were going well why what you know what's wrong with me just giving my baby a cuddle and putting them to sleep or what's wrong with me feeding my baby off to sleep why why do they have to self-settle and the answer is they at the beginning they don't have to at the beginning it's fine if you help them along um if you rock them to sleep or if you feed them to sleep you're actually you're doing it for them the settling bit you're doing it for them at the beginning that's fine but it won't work forever you're not going to carry on doing that when they're seven eight you know it's so it won't it won't work it's not sustainable over the long term so there comes a point where you have to say okay well look I've been doing it for my baby now I'm going to start to do it with my baby and help my baby to do a bit more of this settling thing and bit by bit you hand the range over so that then eventually your baby's just doing it on their own they're doing it and you don't have to do it for them you can still be there with your baby you can still give all the love and and attention in the world but you're not actually doing the settling bit for them so uh that's where it's important it's absolutely vital there's going to come a point where you won't be able to feed your baby to sleep or rock your toddler to sleep or whatever it may be they need to learn this skill and the sooner well I say the sooner the better you can't do this you know from birth but it's best to not leave this like going on into toddlerhood and into early childhood because it becomes harder and have itself harder to then shift and change and it's just tougher for them so it's better to work on this earlier rather than waiting until those habits are really ingrained into toddlerhood and beyond which needs to my next question which is when can you teach this when can you teach self settling um they say from 18 weeks some people think it's six months it's um you know somewhere in that ballpark in in the four four to six month period um your child will become cognitively ready and developmentally ready to go through practices which will help them be able to develop a master that skill so it's somewhere in there and obviously different children are gonna be different what I would say to you um to be on the safe side is that under 18 weeks don't try to actually teach them this skill just get into some good rhythms just get in some good rhythms and practices once you're past the 18 week mark then you can start to up the ante on that practice and just take it down a bit more of a teaching route where you're showing them a bit more helping them a little bit more giving them a bit more direction and handing over the reins bit by bit if your little one is six months or older then I would say yeah they absolutely go for it there's no doubt from that point on um they're very valuable and very ready to learn and also from six months the things you're doing will start to ingrain a lot more so if they're not long term sustainable things then you definitely want to shift them onto a path um that's going to be more long term sustainable so if you're at the six month mark then absolutely it's a great time anyone who's way past that thinking oh gosh I missed the window it's never too late it's never too late it just can be a little tougher um if there are habits deeply ingrained and they're not going to want to let go of but there are loads of things you can do to help a little one just shift onto a healthier and more conducive path that's going to help them become a really efficient skilled sleeper and the last thing I really want to talk about is the sleep-nanny ethos around the whole self-settling thing our ethos is not in any way about leaving little ones to cry and I say that all the time um we are wired as mothers and as parents generally we are wired to respond to cries and it's right to respond to cries we we need to meet baby and young children's needs we do also need to differentiate needs and wants because sometimes a want isn't the best thing for the child the needs need to be met but it might not be a need it's like feeding if they need feeding feed them but if they don't actually need feeding they just want feeding that might not be the best thing so differentiating the needs and the wants is really important as well and um and the other thing is I think it's really important to not try to push a baby or young child into doing things they're not ready to do and that's another part of our ethos sleep-nanny what we do want to do is we want to squeeze the best out of them we want to get them to their personal best we want to get them doing the best they can do just like we want for our children to ruin our life you know throughout their education and and their their lives we want them to be giving it their best and we what we don't want to be doing is suffering with parental sleep deprivation and you know child's development and everything else being hindered health and well being everything hindered by sleep deprivation when they could be sleeping better that's the key when they could be sleeping better let's help them to sleep better if they're doing their absolute best for their developmental readiness their age their personality and everything else if that is the best they can do that's the best we can expect and that's great but it's about not settling or suffering for less when things could be improved and that's what we're all about here at sleep-nanny I hope this has been helpful for you and I hope that it clears up and gives you a better understanding on self-suming and self-settling why it's important and how you can actually go about implementing some of that if you've enjoyed this please do share it with anyone else that you think will benefit from this I'm sure you know at least two friends who would you know really take this message on board and it could actually change their lives so go out there pay it forward share this with two friends right now and don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel for further episodes and click the link you'll find there's a link that will take you to a really useful downloadable printable cheat sheet that will help you further with this with this topic so take that freebie it's yours and enjoy