Respond To Your Baby's Cues

I once attended a medical meeting where the topic was building infants' self-confidence. After reviewing all of the scientific studies, the presenters concluded that the single most important building block of self-esteem is the responsiveness of the caregivers to the cues of the infant. The caregivers' reactions give meaning and importance to babies' impulses.

Here's how it works: A baby fusses and looks for a nipple, mouth open wide, and his mother responds by offering a feeding. Once this action and reaction are repeated many times in the first days and weeks of life, the baby grows confident that the reality of a hungry tummy is connected to the satisfaction that comes with nursing. He trusts his environment (and his parents are his environment) to take care of him. He also learns to trust his own needs: "Mom fed me  -- I must have been hungry! And that noise I made  -- that's why she picked me up!"

Over and over again, a baby finds that her signals make something happen and that her actions have value; that she has value. Plus, she learns that she can help herself by getting her parents' attention.

So the next time a well-meaning friend says, "Let her cry it out" or "She has to learn to comfort herself," don't be fooled into thinking that the best way to help your baby develop confidence is to force her to cope with problems by herself. Yes, there are times in life when older children or adults do grow in self-confidence because they surmount difficulties on their own. But babies left to cry it out don't learn to trust their own resources. The personal resource they rely on when they are in distress is the ability to cry to get a caregiver's attention. If no one comes, that implies no one cares, and their self-confidence suffers.

My wife Martha and I carried our babies a lot and responded quickly to each cry. Despite all those warnings about creating clingy, spoiled babies, we now proudly accept every compliment about how self-assured our kids are. I believe that because we met their needs early on, they are now able to move away from us with absolute confidence.

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