Anyone who has had to deal with an anxious baby knows how difficult it can be to calm them down. When a baby starts crying, they seem inconsolable. Also, once we have calmed them down, if we leave them back in their crib, they may start crying again. So, how to calm an anxious and nervous baby?
Followers of the Ferber method will opt for “controlled crying”; That is, letting the child cry for increasingly longer periods of time, before comforting him. They claim that with this strategy babies learn to calm themselves (at least in theory). However, Neuroscience supports another much older and less traumatic approach: holding the baby.
Mothers have always been right
A study conducted by researchers at the RIKEN Institute of Brain Sciences in Japan has proven a universal phenomenon: babies calm down when their mothers hold them. These neuroscientists believe that this relaxation response is written in our brain and is precisely what has allowed the human species to survive.
In this research it was seen that when mothers hold their babies in their arms, a complex response is produced in which the central nervous, motor and cardiac systems intervene. In fact, the rhythmic movements that mothers make to rock their children generate a feeling of security that activates an automatic relaxation response.
What exactly calms babies?
The calm response is mediated by the parasympathetic nervous system and an area of the brain called the cerebellum. That feeling of tranquility depends fundamentally on proprioception; that is, touch and the position of the body in space, especially in the case of babies.
Proprioception is the ability to feel and understand the body’s movements and know where it is in space. These neuroscientists also discovered that skin-to-skin contact and rocking in the mother’s arms activate the parasympathetic nervous system to decrease heart rate (an indicator that normally increases when babies feel anxious and nervous), thus generating a calm response.
The cerebellum, for its part, is the command center that coordinates these signals as it is linked to the feedback loop of the vagus nerve. Not only is it involved in the coordination of movements, balance and proprioception, but it is also a kind of guardian that protects our body and activates the fight or flight response, staying aware of what is happening in the environment. In fact, although it only occupies 10% of the brain, it consumes a large amount of energy. When mothers hold their children, the cerebellum understands that there is no danger and triggers a relaxation response so that the baby calms down.
Therefore, between the crib and the warmth of the mother’s arms, a baby will always prefer the second option. And between the warmth of her mother sitting or walking, the little ones prefer movement. It is not a whim nor that the baby has learned to “manipulate” his parents, it is a physiological need, an ancestral protection mechanism that, moreover, not only guarantees his physical safety but also his emotional stability since it begins to convey the idea that the world is a safe place where their needs matter and are met. That being the case, do not hesitate to comfort your child whenever he needs it, for as long as you can, for as long as he lets you.
Source:
Esposito, F. et. Al. (2013) Infant calming responses during maternal carrying in humans and mice. Current Biology; 23(9): 739-745.
