Effect of soothing techniques on infants’ self-regulation behaviors (sleeping, crying, feeding): A randomized controlled study

Abstract

Aim: To determine the effect of teaching 4S soothing techniques (swaddling, holding at side or stomach position, shushing-white noise, swinging) on parent-reported infants’ self-regulation behaviors with respect to sleeping, crying, and feeding. Methods: This research is a pretest–post-test, single-blind randomized experimental study with 6 month follow-ups. An intervention group (IG) and a control group (CG) were formed, each consisting of 21 mother–infant dyads. A 90 min training program was applied to the mothers in the IG during the home visit in the fourth week after birth. For both groups, the dependent variables of the study are the parent-reported self-regulation behaviors of the infants in weeks 3, 7, 11, and 23. Results: No significant difference was found between the two groups before the intervention in the pretest in terms of the mean sleep duration, mean crying duration, frequency of feeding, and frequency of waking at night. After the teaching of the 4S soothing techniques had been conducted, it was determined that the mean frequency of waking at night, the mean frequency of daily feeding, and the mean daily crying duration of the infants in the IG was statistically significantly lower in all follow-ups, compared to the infants in the CG. In weeks 7 and 11 after the intervention, the mean daily sleep duration of the infants in the IG was found to be statistically significantly higher, compared to the infants in the CG. Conclusion: Health professionals can use the 4S soothing techniques to develop self-regulation behaviors of infants during the first 12 weeks of the infancy period.