Pick up the baby (or dire consequences will ensue)!

From co‐regulation to self‐regulation: Maternal soothing strategies and self‐efficacy in relation to maternal reports of infant regulation at 3 and 7 months

“…Mothers of difficult‐to‐soothe infants use DS strategies more often (e.g., letting the infant cry) and this may reduce the infant's demand for maternal attention resulting in a decrease in crying and non‐soothability at 7 months. Given that Bilgin and Wolke's (2020) study shows small effect sizes and other recent work shows opposite results (Blackman, 2017; Jahromi & Stifter, 2007; Öztürk Dönmez & Bayik Temel, 2019), the interpretation should be treated with caution. This is not to say that letting your infant cry is a good strategy to promote self‐regulation development.…”

“…Maternal involvement and comfort reduces infant crying and distress (Ganda et al., 2011), which leads to a more profound parent‐child relationship (Blackman, 2017). Experts highlight the importance of having higher levels of self‐efficacy in parenting but also using appropriate parenting practices during the day and at night for better parent‐child relationship and child behavioral outcomes (Albanese et al., 2019; Higley & Dozier, 2009; Sadeh et al., 2010; Volkovich et al., 2015).…”

“…It is also known to impact self‐regulation development, here defined as children's ability to modulate their own reactivity (Rothbart et al., 2011) and to control behavior appropriately and self‐sufficiently (Bandura, 1977; Carver & Scheier, 1981; Kopp, 1982). Numerous studies show that poor parental co‐regulation is associated with impaired self‐regulation skills in young children, whereas supportive parental co‐regulation is associated with better self‐regulation competencies (Blackman, 2017; Ispa et al., 2017; Mohr et al., 2019; Raghunath et al., 2020). Persistent regulation problems in infancy and early childhood often co‐exist with diminished abilities linked to self‐regulation, like executive functioning, effortful and cognitive control, executive attention, or working memory (e.g., Beauchaine & McNulty, 2013; Nigg, 2017).…”