The Gentle Science of Sleep
How Calming Techniques Support Infant Wellbeing
Understanding how swaddling, shushing, and swinging support your baby’s nervous system
When your baby is unsettled, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed — but the calming techniques you’re using aren’t just comforting, they’re also backed by science. Here’s how these gentle strategies support your baby’s body and brain, helping ease them into sleep more peacefully.
Swaddling | A Hug That Speaks to the Nervous System
Swaddling helps your baby feel secure by gently wrapping their body and reducing sensory overload.
We have included a short demonstration clip on how this is done correctly on a baby.*
Body Support: The firm, even pressure, activates touch and body awareness systems (proprioception), which helps calm the nervous system.
Hormone Balance: Swaddling can boost oxytocin — the “bonding hormone” — and reduce cortisol, the hormone linked to stress. This promotes a deeper sense of safety and relaxation.
Shushing | Familiar Sounds That Reassure
Shushing mimics the womb’s rhythmic sounds, which your baby recognises and finds soothing.
Sound and the Brain: The steady noise gently engages your baby’s hearing and helps quiet brain activity that may be overstimulated.
Soothing Chemistry: This repetitive sound can trigger the release of endorphins — natural chemicals that reduce discomfort and help your baby feel calm and settled.
Swinging |Motion That Grounds and Calms
Gentle rocking or swinging taps into your baby’s inner balance system (the vestibular system), which develops early and plays a key role in sleep readiness.
Neural Connection: This motion helps organise brain activity, creating a sense of predictability and calm.
Mood Regulation: Swinging can increase serotonin levels — a feel-good chemical that supports mood, comfort, and emotional regulation.
These calming tools — swaddling, shushing, and swinging — do more than soothe in the moment. They speak directly to your baby’s developing brain and body, helping to regulate sensory input and support the release of calming hormones like oxytocin, endorphins, and serotonin, while lowering stress hormones like cortisol. Used with intention and care, they help create the conditions for better, more restful sleep.
Your baby begins to develop their sleep hormones from as early as 2 weeks old, and they continue to gradually mature in these as the weeks go by. Our newborns are not only pre dispositioned to want sleep, developmentally they need sleep. Understanding why these motions work to soothe and calm babies, links perfectly into our ‘key techniques for settling a newborn’ document, where we explore, in detial, the practical things you can do at home to settle and put your newborn into a deep restful state of sleep.
