teaching baby to self-settle

We all have sleep associations, we don’t bat an eyelid about our own quirks or needs around what helps us sleep. Yet, with even a very young baby, there is pressure to ‘teach your baby to self-settle’ – to fall asleep without any help from you.

Needing a published study to tell us a baby (or any one of us, for that matter) will be distressed if we shut him in a room alone and don't respond to his cries, is like needing research to tell us the grass will grow if it rains. While there is certainly a difference in physical safety between checking on a crying baby and shutting the door…