Interestingly today my local NHS Maternity Facebook Page posted about how you should attend to your child's cries and not leave them as it could affect their development.
Just a quote from the post:
Who has heard the advice, “Stop holding the #baby so much — you’re going to spoil them”. And did it make you hesitate to do what your instincts directed, to calm your crying baby?
There are no reasons to think twice when cuddling with your upset infant, no matter what well-meaning advice you receive. It’s impossible to spoil them. J. Kevin Nugent, director of the Brazelton Institute at #Children’s Hospital in Boston and a child psychologist, says that a newborn baby learns from their interactions with their parents that the world is reliable, and can trust that their needs will be met. Responding to baby’s cries “isn’t a matter of spoiling,” he said. “It’s a matter of meeting the child’s needs.”
Notre Dame psychologist Darcia Narvaez led a research team that found children become healthier and happier adults when they have parents who treated them with #affection, #sensitivity, and #playfulness since birth. By surveying over 600 adults about affectionate touch, free #play and positive family time in their childhoods, it was found that adults with less anxiety and overall better mental wellbeing had positive childhoods.
Professor Narvaez encourages parents to respond to their baby’s cries, whether it means holding them, touching them, or rocking them; it’s all optimal. “What parents do in those early months and years are really affecting the way the #brain is going to grow the rest of their lives,” explains Narvaez, “so lots of holding, touching and rocking, that is what babies expect. They grow better that way. And keep them calm, because all sorts of systems are establishing the way they are going to work.
“If you let them cry a lot, those systems are going to be easily triggered into #stress. We can see that in adulthood — that people that are not cared for well, tend to be more stress reactive and they have a hard time self-calming.”
The researchers found that free play in and out of doors is vital for child development, as well as growing up in a positive, warm home environment. Narvaez believed that humans need these important things from the time they are born. Therefore, she recommends parents follow their instincts.
Although it places a large responsibility on parents to be responsive to their baby’s cries, she adds that we really didn’t evolve to parent alone. Our history is to have a community of caregivers to help, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends in the baby’s life. Professor Narvaez says, “We need to, as a community, support families so they can give children what they need.
theheartysoul.com/holding-your-crying-baby-isnt-spoiling-them/
www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-athletes-way/201304/the-neuroscience-calming-baby
www.researchgate.net/publication/236251169_Infant_Calming_Responses_during_Maternal_Carrying_in_Humans_and_Mice