co-regulation in infancy and early childhood

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Co-regulation refers to the dynamic interaction between two people–between their bodies, minds, or nervous systems–through which they help each other move toward a state of balance or calm. This process can happen automatically, beneath our awareness, or it can be a conscious, mindful practice. Co-regulation is one of the most important foundations of early parenting and plays a central role in helping a developing child feel safe and connected within a family, group, or community as they move toward individuation and autonomy.

Co-regulation takes place within many kinds of relationships: between a child and caregiver, between peers, among families, and within larger social groups–whether close and personal or more abstract and organizational. Let’s look at some of the most important opportunities for co-regulation your child will experience in early childhood. For the purposes of this discussion, we will focus on co-regulation during early childhood–from birth to around 18 months–when most children begin walking and using words to label objects.

The fundamental form of co-regulation in pre-ambulatory and pre-verbal early childhood occurs during body-to-body contact or close proximity between a caregiver and a child. When a caregiver holds a child in close proximity, their nervous systems work together: sensory signals pass back and forth like a human Bluetooth connection. The child’s sensory responses are shaped by the adult’s reactions to each experience.

Young children’s sensory systems are open to a broad range of input, and by nature, they look to their caregivers–their trusted adults–to help them contextualize what they are experiencing.

For example, a caregiver holding a child in a sling, carrier, or in arms, or even just in close proximity to their trusted adult, may hear a loud sound that is highly stimulating to the child’s sensitive nervous system. If this sound is familiar and non-threatening to the caregiver, their nervous response will remain close to neutral. This provides context–a kind of ground–that helps the child’s senses interpret the strong input. From the child’s preverbal perspective, this interaction might sound like:

“Wow! That was a loud sound! I don’t know how to feel about that. But Mom’s nervous system is still calm, and I recognize that as safe, so I’ll take this moment in stride and include this sound in my palette of acceptable sensory experiences.”

For a young child who experiences frequent co-regulation, a wide variety of sensory input is filtered and contextualized through proximity to their trusted adult. Consider a child growing up in a culture with near-constant co-regulation until walking age (typically 9–18 months). The child experiences everything the caregiver experiences–in all sorts of sensory and social-emotional environments–and receives intimate, nonverbal cues about how to respond in each case. Before they can speak, the child gains valuable information about what is safe, uncertain, overwhelming, neutral, or celebratory–directly through their caregiver’s nervous system. Because we all encounter a range of sensory and social-emotional input each day–some routine, some novel–we can see how valuable this early, nonverbal, intuitive, and experiential education is to a developing child.

Let’s pause to consider the co-regulation process in environments where close, physical contact between child and caregiver is present but intermittent–where periods of co-regulation are punctuated by times when the child’s nervous system is either isolated or surrounded by adults whose roles are less defined than that of a parent or close caregiver.

In such cases, a child may receive sensory input that is highly stimulating–or even dysregulating–to their nervous system. Without a proximal co-regulating partner, there is no immediate context for that experience. In a neurodiverse population, we can expect to see a range of responses.

Some children may startle but recover quickly, even without a co-regulating adult. Others may startle and, lacking a grounding presence, move into dysregulation–an emotional response such as agitation, crying, or a full-blown tantrum–that might not have occurred had they been near a calm, trusted adult whose nervous system could help them interpret the strong sensory event.

For a sensitive child separated from a consistent co-regulator, the path back to regulation can be less than direct. Adults nearby may or may not recognize the cause of the child’s dysregulation, and may or may not respond in a way that helps the child contextualize the experience. Sympathetic and savvy caregivers will recognize the child’s response and provide calm, neutral presence when it is appropriate, and will move from a place of anxiety toward a safe, grounding space when actual danger is present. Less experienced caregivers might not understand the child’s dysregulation, and may respond with their own anxiety and lack of certainty, reinforcing a sense of danger or urgency in the child’s experience. And once the child does return to the closeness and care of their trusted adult, being preverbal, it is likely that the residue from their sensory experience–their somatic and emotional memories–may not be able to find ground once they reconnect. They will, of course, be comforted, but perhaps the specificity of their experience will linger in ways that the caregiver may not recognize.

Considering this, we can see how frequent, close proximity to a trusted co-regulating adult has a normalizing effect across a neurodiverse population–and how separation from this type of access can magnify individual differences in regulation and response.

In these early months, co-regulation forms the foundation for a child’s sense of safety and trust in the world. Through countless sensory exchanges, children begin to internalize patterns of calm, attunement, and recovery. As they grow and gain mobility, this foundation supports the gradual shift from co-regulation toward self-regulation–the next major developmental stage, when children begin to manage their own emotional and sensory experiences with increasing independence. In a neurodiverse population, we can already see the seeds of the challenges that many children will face as they move through various care environments.

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