383. Q&A: Can you spoil a toddler by holding them too much?

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello. Welcome to Beyond the Sessions segment of the Securely Attached podcast. We are going to answer listener questions today, and I have Dr. Emily Upshur. Hello.

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:53):

Hi.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:54):

How’s everything going with you?

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:56):

It’s good to be here. I’m psyched to talk to you.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:59):

Yay. Okay, so we have a question from a parent and this parent writes in, I am a firm believer that you can’t spoil a baby, and if they want to be picked up and soothed, that is totally fine and appropriate to do. But now that my baby’s about to turn two, I’m becoming a toddler, he’s going through a phase where he always wants to be in someone’s arms, and I find myself wondering if the same thing is true as he gets older, should I still pick him up whenever he wants to be held, if it is also feasible for me, or should I start to stretch him and not hold him so often?

Dr. Emily Upshur (01:32):

Oof. Good question. I love these ones.

Dr. Sarah Bren (01:34):

It is because I think it’s a question that a lot of people wonder and aren’t exactly sure how to articulate this because I think what she’s speaking to is this, I don’t know, I think really common experience of having conflicting advice about parenthood, you can’t spoil a baby. And also, am I supposed to stretch him? Am I supposed to create independence and do I do that by not holding? Is there a time when he’s too old to be held? And I feel like we get this sort of competing information all the time, and it’s hard to reconcile it because it doesn’t always fit.

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:09):

Yeah. And I also think it’s competing developmental stages. This isn’t a baby anymore or is it, it’s one of those things where it’s like you’re always my baby, but I think what you’re speaking to is something we talk a lot about, which is being attuned to your kid. And so I don’t think it’s about you can’t hold a baby too much or you can’t hold a toddler too much, or you should always pick them up, or you should never pick them up or stretch them out. It’s more like, let’s figure out what’s going on in this moment. Do they need to be on a scale of one to 10? Do they need to be picked up right now or could I, are they a three fussy to get picked up? But I know that when they’re an eight, I got to pick them up. But at a three I can sort of let them lie. It’s a little bit of, I’m very inspired by this recent talk on Wincott that I went to because Wincott is very much about the zones of regulation actually. And one of his foundational theories is the baby can have room between X and Y, meaning if you pick baby up every time an X, that might be too much, but if you stretch to Y, that could be the sweet spot. But if you go all the way to Z, that might be too much. You’re pushing your child too hard and so you’re always trying to find…

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:36):

Like titration?

Dr. Emily Upshur (03:37):

Yeah, well, and you’re trying to find that zone

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:39):

Like, gradual exposure of where…

Dr. Emily Upshur (03:42):

Tolerance.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:42):

Where is the window of tolerance. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Emily Upshur (03:46):

And figuring that, and every child is different in that way. Every developmental stage is different in that way. So speaking to this mom…

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:53):

Day to day.

Dr. Emily Upshur (03:55):

Moment to moment.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:58):

My kid could be super stretchy one day and rigid AF the next day. So it’s like how do they sleep? Are they super hungry? Are they really tired?

Dr. Emily Upshur (04:08):

Are they sick? Do they need to eat all these variables that as moms were taking in all this data, we’re like these data collectors, and we’re taking in all this data for our attunement calculator, and then this mom is like, okay, I have all this data. What am I supposed to do with it? I totally get it. And I think what we’re saying is it’s good to stretch them sometimes when you feel like they can handle it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (04:35):

Well, Wayne, like this mom, I love that. She’s like, should I still pick him up whenever he wants to be held? If it’s also feasible for me, embedded in that question is an awareness that her needs matter too. If it’s not feasible for me, if I don’t have the physical capacity to do it in the moment, our hands are full or I don’t have the emotional capacity to do it at the moment. I need some space right now. I need a moment. Mommy needs a minute. We are comfortable saying no, and I love really want to highlight that this parent is identifying that because you’re already light years ahead of the game here.

Dr. Emily Upshur (05:09):

Well, and what I would say to that parent is that you’re doing a great job, but it’s actually a skill for your kid too. So in knowing your own boundaries and in self-care and in sort of having that expressed in that way, I think there’s a conflict sometimes like, oh, is that selfish and I’m not doing right by my kid. I actually think that’s, in my view, that’s what you’re doing right by your kid, by actually saying, I am a person outside of you. I have these limits too, and I believe that you’re going to be okay so much that I’m going to be able to take care of me and then also get to you and take care of you.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:46):

And you can even be in a little bit of distress while I take care of me. And totally, I’m comfortable with that, which shows you you’re safe. You might not enjoy it, you might not like it. You might communicate your distress about it. To me, I’m still going to do the thing I need to do and coming back to you afterwards, I’m also modeling. It’s safe. It’s safe for me to not pick you up right now. It’s also safe for you to be upset about that.

Dr. Emily Upshur (06:09):

Yes.

Dr. Sarah Bren (06:10):

All things are safe.

Dr. Emily Upshur (06:11):

Yes. I love that. I love the way you said that. That’s exactly right. This is safe. It’s okay. It’s safe to be a little dysregulated. It’s safe for me to not be able to get to you, but I won’t wait until Z. Right?

Dr. Sarah Bren (06:25):

Yeah. I also think, and I think again, the nuance, this is why I’m glad I have a podcast, and I’m not trying to squeeze this into a soundbite on an Instagram post because a blurb, there’s so much nuance here, but I think there’s different types of situations as well. So if it’s just like I have a feeling I’m agitated, I want you to make this feeling, go away, rescue me, pick it up, pick me up, make it easier. We’re talking about can we practice stretching in distress tolerance within the zone of capacity? That’s great. That’s good for building skills around distress tolerance and all the things we’ve just been talking about. But I do think there’s another sort of filtering question that can be helpful in these situations to try to figure out, well, what problem am I solving for here? Because I think, and I know nothing about what’s going on in this family other than her baby’s about to turn two, but I think that there are internal milestones and developmental shifts that kids can be responding to and needing a higher degree of comfort and soothing.

(07:36):

Their attachment systems kind of get activated when they’re going through a developmental leap or they’re working out a new skill or they’re navigating a new amount of separation or a new amount of independence in other places in their life, they get clingier, right? That’s a sign that their attachment system is just responding to the stress on their system that’s healthy, normative, developmentally appropriate stress. It makes sense though, when our kids learning something struggling with something, they might need us and want us to pick them up more, and I think that’s okay. I think it is really okay to level up the soothing factor in the relationship when our kid might be needing it. I also think there’s external shifts in a child’s system that can happen throughout development too often is a time when maybe another baby might be being thought about. You don’t even need to be having another baby just thinking about another baby. Your child might be perceiving that on some level. There’s a way that, I don’t know, a lot happens in a family system in the early childhood years, and kids are so profoundly, they’re just so profoundly sensitive to those very subtle shifts.

(09:00):

And when they perceive a shift and it’s usually very outside of their conscious awareness, they’re not aware that they’re perceiving the shift. But I mean an attachment system is a threat response When our attachment system gets activated, that is technically a threat response, right? Ooh, that was a loud noise. Where’s mom? Ooh, this feeling is uncomfortable. Where’s mom? Our attachment systems do not tend to get activated when we are feeling safe and calm and chill and we’re playing and we’re doing our own thing, the attachment system is activated as part of our threat response. So if your kid is, again, know your kid, if your kid’s just always kind of a stage one clinger and that’s just the kind of kid you have, we can work on slowly titrating and stretching that distress tolerance, getting a little more separation, anxiety tolerance. But if your kid is kind of baseline, sort of in the middle and then you notice an increase in clinginess, my first instinct is to not worry so much about am I supposed to pick them up to just be curious?

(10:04):

I wonder what’s going on for them that they’re needing a little bit more of me right now. And it’s not, there’s no right or wrong. I’m just inviting people to notice that as a cue to get curious and look under the hood a bit. Is there system under stress? Is the environment changing? And I don’t mean bad stress, it could just be growth, stress. It’s putting on muscle. You tear muscle to grow muscle, right? It stresses the system. But yeah, I think sometimes our child’s desire for us to pick them up, even if it’s in age inappropriate way, I say inappropriate quotes, but they’re a little old for this, whatever. Sometimes it’s usually a communication that something is kind of overwhelming them a little bit or feels a little big and they just need more of you. And then when we give it to them, their system adjusts to whatever the demands were, and then they move on and they kind of go back to baseline.

Dr. Emily Upshur (11:09):

Yeah, I mean I think the other nuance there that I was thinking about when you were talking about that is you can also pick up your kid and not totally attend to them. And I think that’s actually an effective parenting. I’m think when you, you’re like, oh, and there’s often thinking about another baby or having another baby picking up your child and devoting a hundred percent of your attention to them is one thing, and picking up your child so that you can hold their child and soThe their nervous system while doing something else not fully attending to them is another thing too, which I always want to give parents permission to do because you can’t always work on stretching. It takes effort and it does take, some of the things we’re talking about can naturally stretch kids. I know that my third child stretched all the time because just by the time I got to her, sometimes she had settled herself because there was just too many children in the way. But I do think in those times when we’re consciously trying to stretch our kids, it takes effort and you don’t have to do that every single time. And I want to give parents permission to be like, I’m just going to pick up my kid and deal with this baby right now or talk on my call because I just can’t stretch right now. And I think that’s an important thing to dog ear as well.

Dr. Sarah Bren (12:33):

But I think comforting a child doesn’t spoil them no matter how old they are. That’s kind of like what our relationship, our systems are designed for. We are a co-regulatory body for our child. We are like the signal of safety. So I think that soothing our kids, even if that means picking them up sometimes it might just mean we pat their back or sometimes it just means we just sit down next to them.

(13:09):

Or sometimes it just means we make eye contact from across the room and I give ’em a little nod. There’s a lot of ways we could sue their kid. But yes, a lot of times they want that physical help being held. And I don’t know. I’m of the belief that there’s a functional role that plays in the parent child relationship and it’s not about, and I hear this woman is not saying she’s on board, that this doesn’t spoil a kid. And I just think sometimes my 8-year-old needs me to just pick ’em up and hold them. And those days will eventually not be available, but sometimes I want my mom to just give me a hug. I don’t think it ever ends. I don’t think there’s ever an age where it’s like, well, we’re too old for this, so I also think you have permission.

Dr. Emily Upshur (14:06):

Yeah, I love that. No, I love that. But I think what this person is asking, which I think just dovetails right into what you’re saying is there are different ways to signal too. And can I think about, maybe we just put this out to the audience. Maybe if you’re having these questions, just think about the other ways you could signal safety. You could signal soothing, play with that. It might not be at the height of a distressing moment. It might be at a moderately distressing moment. Play with it. Can I shoot them a look? Can I put my hand on their shoulder? Can I say something? Do I have to go ultimately to a hundred percent soothing? Can I go to 50% soothing? How can I sort of think through my tactics there? And I love this person is thinking about that already.

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:54):

Yes. And maybe we should have started with this, but it’s just occurring to me right now. But I’m also thinking of this is a 2-year-old, so just a quick primer on developmental readiness for being stretched. It’s going to be obviously individual teach kid, but generally it’s also related to their distress tolerance. And that is something that’s not super strong to, I do think that, I think it’s very easy for people to say an infant can never be held too much or comforted too much. I also think that’s true for two year olds because I just don’t think sometimes we start to have developmentally less appropriate expectations for kids in the two to three range that I think really should be extended a lot further out just because their prefrontal cortex is so underdeveloped at that stage and a lot of that part of the brain is responsible for self-soothing and self-regulation and tolerating distress. And so I think it too, just from a very practical developmental standpoint, I think it too, they’re still heavily dependent on us to co-regulate heavily. And so if we are thinking very practical at what developmental stage does stretching start to come into my consideration more? I would say two. Still young, so you got time. You can hold off a little bit before I have to worry about stretching. Actually, I would say, I don’t know. It’s going to be different for every kid. Emily, what do you think? Four?

Dr. Emily Upshur (16:31):

I think it’s so hard because I like the idea of playing with it all along so it doesn’t feel like this big lesson, this big withdrawal later. But I do think I hear what you’re saying, which is two is really young and I think two also developmentally is they’re, because they’re actually going out more independently more too. So it’s like we’re not paying as much attention to that in this conversation. But two year olds are often quite dependent, but then that’s why they want to be picked up all the time because a little bit freaked out by their new role, their new power and assertion. So I would say you can do it all along. I think what you’re getting at is, you’re right. I think closer to four is a time where you more intentionally might start to create structures in your mind or in your relationships that sort of build some of that. But I really do think you do it all along.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:24):

Right, less about picking up, but stretch distress tolerance. I think a 4-year-old can tolerate distress tolerance stretches in a way that a 2-year-old, you could still stretch distress tolerance, but we’re going to stretch. It’s like it’s a degree, right? It’s a smaller degree of stretch for 2-year-old. I hear your point and actually think it’s very fair that we should always be stretching a little bit, but at the level at which a can handle exactly on their developmental capacity to tolerate distress.

Dr. Emily Upshur (17:53):

Exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:58):

So just know your kid, know yourself, be okay with discomfort, but also be okay with soothing because I actually think it, is it the refill that allows them to then go be independent? Because I think people hear if you hold your baby or you are really over comforting them, the fear is they will not be independent. They will not separate from me. And the reality is separation. The foil for separation is connection. And so if we want them to practice separating, we have to be willing to let them connect. It’s like a pendulum. They can’t separate without knowing they can come back and get as much connection as they need to refuel that’s that secure base so that the more they trust that you are a secure base, the more they can go and explore because they know they can come back and fill back up. So just know that the soothing is serving a developmental function that is in the service of separation and individuation and practicing independence. So also just know the function. It’s serving a very important role in that. It’s not undermining it actually.

Dr. Emily Upshur (19:15):

Yeah. No, I love that.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:17):

Well, thank you so much for writing in your question.

Dr. Emily Upshur (19:19):

Yeah, I love it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:20):

I hope this was helpful. And everyone please send more questions and we just absolutely love answering them and we hope this is helpful. If you found this helpful, please subscribe, rate the podcast, share it with a friend. It really helps us out a ton to be able to continue to show up and share this content with you guys. So we love you.

(19:39):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.