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(4 min read) Have you ever wished there was a way to prepare yourself for the inevitable disequilibrium of caring for an infant? A way to shore up your own well-being so that you can remain within your own window of tolerance (calm, focused, and able to cope) and therefore be better equipped to show up for your child? A way to support the development of secure attachment in your child? A way to nurture your child’s ability to one day skillfully manage their own emotions and function with greater independence?
Well you’re in luck because there is and it’s called regulation! It has two components: self-regulation and co-regulation.
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WHAT IS SELF-REGULATION?
According to Dr. Stuart Shanker, author of Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life, self-regulation is, “The ability to stay calmly focused and alert.” As adults, it also involves how we soothe ourselves, manage stress and transitions, and our capacity to be able to wait for things we really want (i.e. delayed gratification). Self-regulation is the magic behind our ability to thoughtfully respond with intention as opposed to reacting impulsively when big feelings or unexpected events come up (e.g. when someone cuts you off on the highway or your toddler takes a swing at the baby).
Adults’ capacity for self-regulation varies due to a variety of factors including temperament, environment, and how sensitive our nervous systems are to stimulation (which is impacted by disability, stress, trauma, and other factors). However, we can influence our baseline self-regulation through a variety of practices, including mindfulness and conscious breathing, by becoming aware of our sensory triggers and modifying our environment or adding in supports, and through co-regulation with empathic adults, to name a few.
Adult self-regulation is woefully overlooked in much of the popular parenting discourse. There is a focus on infants needing to learn how to self-soothe and children learning how to self-regulate. Using rewards and punishments when children aren’t able to live up to adult expectations is still the norm. Adults often worry that supporting and helping soothe a child who is dysregulated is “rewarding” unwanted behavior. However, many folks tend to gloss over the major role adults play when it comes to kiddos’ regulatory capacity.
While we’re discussing adults’ capacity I want to note that there is no state of “perfect” regulation to be achieved. The process of learning how to regulate ourselves is a lifelong journey–one that requires experimentation, trial and error, patience, recalibration, tuning in to ourselves, and always, always self-compassion.
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WHAT IS CO-REGULATION?
The other side of the coin is co-regulation that involves attuned, supportive interactions between adult and child. Dr. Shanker reminds us, “It is only by being regulated that a child develops the ability to self-regulate.” And this process of being regulated is called co-regulation. Co-regulation is an ongoing conversation that involves observing, listening to, and communicating with your child. Sometimes you might utilize soothing techniques (e.g. holding, singing, getting fresh air) to help activate your child’s calming responses.
Just as I mentioned the factors that influence adults’ ability to self-regulate, these same factors impact infants. Additionally, whether a child is born preterm, their age and developmental stage all influence the amount of support (via co-regulation) a child will need. It’s also important to note that our need for co-regulation never ceases–it may wax and wane but our need for compassionate connection in moments of distress (or excitement!) remains throughout the life course.
Co-regulation is complex and nuanced–it requires us to draw upon internal resources we might not know we have–and can feel especially tricky if we’re trying to parent in a way that’s different from the way we were responded to as children.
As Zen teacher Cheri Huber and Melinda Guyol, MFT, point out in their incredible resource, Time-Out for Parents: A Guide to Compassionate Parenting,
“You must take care of the child inside your adult self before you’re able to take care of the child you are raising. Of course we don’t have the luxury of putting on hold parenting our external children while we learn to parent our internal children. We must parent both simultaneously. This is another opportunity to model how you want your child to be as an adult: taking care of yourself as you take care of others.”
What a beautiful reframe of a challenge confronted by many, many parents!
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A CO-REGULATION RESOURCE
One of my favorite in-the-moment resources for co-regulation is the CALMS Approach developed by Debby Takikawa, DC and Carrie Contey, PhD. The acronym reminds us to:
Check in With Yourself
Allow a Breath
Listen to Your Baby
Make Contact and Mirror Feelings
Soothe Your Baby
This simple yet powerful process distills down the essence of co-regulation into a concrete, approachable, and grounding tool you can turn to in moments of distress. This framework beautifully blends mindful awareness and self-regulation with observation and communication in order to develop attunement and secure attachment by supporting infants in feeling safe, supported, and understood.
Holding space for an infant who needs to cry is one of the most difficult aspects of caregiving. It can be incredibly dysregulating to listen to crying. We can feel frustrated, confused, overwhelmed, ineffectual; it can be hard to know when we need to step in to assist and when we’ve done everything we can. It can bring up discomfort from our own childhoods.
Infant specialist Magda Gerber, co-founder of RIE®, gently reminds us, “Our goal should not be to stop the crying, but to understand what the cry means… Allowing a child to cry requires more knowledge, time, and energy than just picking up a child and patting her.” Gerber is not saying that we ignore infants, however she is asking us to be aware of our own impulses to intervene when our child cries without attempting to make sense of what’s going on for them.
There is so much more to discuss about these topics and I would love to be able to support you with feeling more prepared for the social-emotional aspects of caring for an infant. If you’re curious about learning more about (parental) self-regulation and co-regulation during your child’s first year I’ll be hosting a workshop at Andaluz Waterbirth Center on April 29th, 2023. It’s open to expectant parents and those with infants up to 12 months of age. You can enroll here. Spots are limited.