Dear Tunester,
Do you have a soothing method for your baby that you can rely on? Bouncing? Shushing? Driving? Singing? Feeding? Most likely you have a few methods that work fairly well for your baby, but nothing that works all the time. That’s ok, there’s no such thing! But there are definitely things you can do to make your soothing go more smoothly.
The fact is that the soothing method you establish with your baby now will be the same method you use for years to come. In a couple of years you might not be able to fit them in the crook of your arm, but they’ll still need plenty of soothing.
So let’s talk about the three reasons your soothing method might not be working as well as you’d like.
3 Reasons Your Soothing Method Isn’t Working
1. It isn’t soothing you at the same time.
Here’s the hard truth – if we aren’t feeling calm our babies won’t calm down either. Your baby is constantly looking to you to understand how to feel. If fact, they’re super power is picking up on your emotional state like a sensitive antenna.
You know what that means. It means we have no choice but to relax ourselves first, like putting on that oxygen mask in the airplane before we put it on our babies.
So now let’s think about your soothing method. Ask yourself: is it soothing me at the same time?
The best soothing method will be the one that makes you feel calmer, makes your shoulders fall, makes your eyes settle on one spot instead of darting around, makes your belly relax and your breath easier.
If your soothing method isn’t making you feel that way you might want to try the Baby in Tune method (click on the link to get a video explaining how to do it.) There is no one method that will work all the time. But the benefits of using our method is the use of VOICE. When you incorporate your voice into your method you are sending a message to your nervous system to regulate. The mantra like melody in the soothing method is ilke an inner massage to your organs, and forces you to take regular deep inhales.
Other ways to soothe you both at the same time are singing a lullaby or putting on a song you love and dancing around with your baby.
2. Your aren’t being consistent with it
Babies are creatures of habit. We all are! Have you noticed that after only a couple days of doing something – waking at a certain hour, drinking from the bottle, or playing a certain game, your baby starts to expect it to happen again. It’s quite amazing how quickly our babies fall into patterns.
This is good news and bad news. It’s bad news because it means that your baby can easily develop bad habits that then will need ot be broken. But the good news is that it takes a short time to pivot and create better habits as well. Often it just takes our determination.
When it comes to soothing, your baby needs to associate your method with regulating. The more consistent you are with the way you soothe, the more your method will become a behavioral cue.
For instance, if you use the vocal soothing method consistently, every day, every time you soothe, within a few weeks your baby will be accustomed to it. They’ll know that when you start to sing “Ohohoh” and you bounce to the rhythm, that it’s time for you both to co-regulate.
The trick is to be as consistent as you can. That goes for almost everything we do with our babies and kids.
3. You aren’t using your voice effectively
In #`1 we talked about how we need to be somewhat relaxed in order for our baby to calm as well. But the fact is that when you’re baby is screaming on your shoulder adn you’re running around trying to figure out what’s wrong, you’re not feeling very relaxed. So what do you need to do?
Fake it till you make it, parents.
Take deep breaths, relax your belly, try to drop your shoulders. And there is another way taht you might not always consider – focus on relaxing your VOICE.
Our voice can convey tension when we don’t even realize it. When we are stressed our voice tends to crack more, make us feel out of breath when we speak, and it is usually higher in tone.
In order ot fake it til you make it and convey calm to your baby, you can alter your voice by doing these things:
- Take in deep breaths between phrases.
- Lower your tone. Imagine you’re a celebrity who has a low voice who you find soothing. Emulate their voice.
- Speak or sing SLOWER.
Is your baby soothed and now you need sleep hep? Check out this post to get some practical tips that work.
Ok Dear Tunie, that’s it for today. I hope these tips will bring a little more calm to your day today.
Do you have a friend who needs some soothing help asap? Send her this post and tell her to sign up for more.
