Rock-A-Bye-Baby

Written by Rachel Fitz-D / retired specialist midwife; baby & parenting expert; author; writer, and presenter

So here you are again: it’s evening and your baby is dozing in your arms as you walk around the room, gently rocking as you go. You have given this a good twenty minutes - SURELY your precious bundle is now sound asleep? So you creep across the room towards the crib and hover over the crib for a minute before laying them down. You quietly head back across the room to your favourite spot on the sofa and settle back for a little TV and relaxation. Phew! But, no sooner have you grabbed the remote than you hear a little whimper and see teeny hands waving, and you sigh, wondering why your baby seems to sleep perfectly well … as long as they are in arms and being rocked. What is going on?

Let’s roll back to the very start of humankind’s journey on this planet. Any baby not safely kept in arms, especially in the darkness hours, was in grave danger from the cold and hunting animals, so those babies that kicked off every time they were not being cuddled and soothed were the ones that survived.

Hundreds of thousands of years later this feature is such a successful survival strategy that it has become a fundamental, highly evolved part of baby behaviour and parent response.

Whenever we pick up and rock our little one (recreating the gentle rocking motion of being in the womb), they produce calming endorphins and so do we - everybody wins.

But here’s a thing: endorphins wear off very quickly and so, within minutes of going back into the still and cool environment of their crib, those endorphins wear off, their primitive brain goes into high alert screaming “I’m all alone and the bears might get me!”, the wriggling and rooting starts up again, and baby’s highly evolved parent quickly responds by getting them safely back in-arms.

Parents soon discover that there are plenty of ways to soothe and settle a baby: being on the breast brings warmth, skin to skin, the soothing sound of the heartbeat and a delicious trickle of warm, endorphin-rich milk - offering our breast is always our first option because babies can switch the milk flow on and off at will and so easily choose whether to soothe and doze, or soothe and drink. A warm bath followed by a massage can help ease those hormonally triggered stomach cramps we call ‘three-month colic,’ whilst a pram or car ride provides that fabulous rocking motion along with the white noise of the outside world or the car engine. When just a little soothing is needed then cuddling a baby securely into the nape of our neck and rhythmically patting their bottom recreates the sensation of being held firmly in the womb with mum’s strong heartbeat reverberating through the waters.

When Your Arms Need a Break

‘But what about when I need to eat, or go to the loo, or simply just give my poor, tired arms a break from all that rocking?’ I hear you ask. This is when a gently bouncing cradle really comes into its own. Rather than putting our baby into that still crib, knowing that, before the kettle has boiled for that much-needed cuppa our baby will have started grumbling, by using a bouncing cradle we can stay close to our little one as they continue to soothe beautifully whist we take a well-earned break.

Across the world, parents snuggle, suckle, cuddle, pat and rock their babies hour after hour, day after day, month after month, and confidently use bouncing cradles to soothe their babies when their arms need a break. They accept this happily as a natural and healthy approach to parenting. But here in the UK? Here we worry. Every day in my work, fretful parents tell me they fear that, by keeping their baby constantly soothed and rocked (in arms or cradles), they are ‘creating a bad habit’ and ‘making a rod’ for their own back. But nothing could be further from the truth!

Science tells us that, as well as being supremely soothing and aiding sleep, rocking a baby helps build trust and forges deep and secure attachment and bonding. For the first six months of life, being soothed in arms is so essential to a baby’s physical and emotional wellbeing that evolution has ensured they are actually unable to learn how to self-soothe or sleep independently - after all, if they could learn to be alone for any period of time, they could come to harm from the cold, hunger and those bears! Trying to teach them how to self-settle and stay alone in a still crib is like trying to cure a baby of … being a baby. You’re fighting evolution.

Studies show that the rocked babe-in-arms sleeps more soundly, is at a reduced risk of SIDS and infection, has more stable breathing, heart rate and temperature and, as a really huge poke to the ‘rods for back’ brigade, babies that spend more time being soothed in that first half a year grow up to be more sociable, more independent and more confident!

So remember: your baby really does need to be rocked and soothed in order to stay calm, settled and better protected from infection and SIDS; that, far from making a rod for your own back, your quick response to your baby’s wriggles and murmurs by getting them back in arms actually helps them to become more confident and independent in the long run. All of us need a break sometimes and a bouncing cradle can provide that alternative reassuring rocking that babies need to stay settled and soothed. Finally remember that rocking a baby to soothe them is as old as time itself and that, when you are soothing your baby you are also soothing yourself, ensuring that everyone can relax, safe in the knowledge that you are parenting in exactly the way nature intended - by trusting your instincts and cuddling and rocking your baby.

Rachel Fitz-D

Rachel Fitz-D is a 'retired specialist midwife; baby & parenting expert; author of 'Your Baby Skin To Skin' & 'Stretched To The Limits'; writer, and presenter for the Baby Show'. I have four grown-up sons and four young grandchildren. I live in Berkshire and am married to my husband of 40 years.