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Are You Spoiling Your Baby?
How to tell if you're setting yourself up for trouble down the road
by: Sydney Loney
In This Article
W
hen you pick your baby up every time she cries, or buy your toddler a toy on every shopping trip, are you spoiling them rotten? We asked the experts to weigh in:Is it possible to spoil a baby?
No: Cindy Brandon, professor of community and child studies at Centennial College in Toronto, says it’s developmentally impossible for you to spoil a baby – at least, in their first year. An infant can’t figure out cause and effect that early on.” In fact, she says, it’s very important to respond to your baby’s cries. “If you don’t respond, there’s a risk they will become clingy because you haven’t established that trust early on.”
And...yes: That said, there is one caveat: it’s important to let your baby learn how to self-soothe. “Parents don’t want to be unavailable to their babies, so as soon as they wake and fuss, they get picked up or fed,” says Peter Nieman, a community pediatrician in Calgary. “But I encourage parents to gradually wait a little longer because babies do have the ability to self-soothe and can condition themselves to go back to sleep without always needing to be fed or cuddled.”
