A child learns “self-soothing” by BEING SOOTHED, and in no other way.
What these child abusers call “self-soothing” (they are soothing their own consciences) is exhaustion, despair, and BRAIN DAMAGE.
I agree which is why I wrote “knows that it calms them.” The parent cannot know this unless they have been there to sooth the child. It is the association the lovey has with the parents soothing the child that makes it possible for the child to use it to calm herself. I’m not writing about a child full out screaming but one that is just a bit fussy and has a few cranky cries to get out. I should have been clear I did not mean infants but toddler age children.
The human infant is designed to be close to and almost fully dependent upon mom for the first 3 years of life. This closeness is necessary for proper brain development and social structure. Separating infants from their mom at 6 weeks and putting them in a typical day care facility
is contradictory to this. It also means mom since mom is working she is even more exhausted and likely to turn to letting a baby cry it out. Not out of malice but out of desperation and exhaustion.