One reason why parenting advice that follows a prescribed style -- like Gentle, or Attachment, or Free Range Parenting -- doesn't always work is because such advice misses a key point: Infants' do not enter the world as blank slates. They are not all the same when it comes to things like being comfy in a noisy space, handling changes in their routines, adjusting to new people, or responding easily to sights, sounds, and stuff.
Rather, infants come into the world with their own unique reactive and emotive tendencies, called Temperament. Not only that, but their parents have their own unique reactive and emotive tendencies too, and parents' may or may not align with their children's. Many of the guides on this media collective offer excellent explanation on temperament. Here my aim is to help you think about the principle of goodness of fit between you and your child, or children. Parents of "multiples" likely know this already -- that each child is their own person, when it comes to temperament.
Your temperamental profile [comprised of activity/energy levels, tendency towards positivity, tendency towards negativity like anger and distress, inhibition, and persistence], remains relatively stable over your lifespan, BUT -- you can learn to regulate yourself as needed, and this starts in infancy. Temperament scholar Mary Rothbart calls such regulation "effortful control." When parents help their children (from infancy onwards) regulate their reactions to encounters and experiences, they are teaching their children lessons in effortful control. These lessons are valuable! All children react to things, and all children can learn to adjust their reactions as needed. However it takes time -- like several years -- to learn this.
The Goodness-of-fit principle, then, is this: Not all families have the same baseline to work from, when it comes to parents' support of their infants' reactive tendencies. When parents know themselves and what THEY need in moments of "big feelings", they are better equipped to help their infants (and eventually children, then adolescents) cope with their "big feelings" [i.e., their own unique temperamental expressions]. When parent's reactions are a fit with their child's needs, then all is well. Over time a healthy attachment will form, and the child will learn the kind of effortful control strategies that they need to be successfully sociable in their unique corner of the world. No pop-culture parenting style I know of includes this important principle. So when deciding how to care for your infant in moments of distress, rather than follow a style, attend to the signals your child is sending to you and offer them they support they need. Remember that some kids need more than others.
