The Rescue Reflex: Stop rescuing your child from big emotions

Picture this: A 2.5-year-old toddler asks to breastfeed. His mom is emotionally and physically done with breastfeeding.  She’s touched out.  She’s experiencing nursing aversion and she’s starting to resent her child.  This is something moms don’t want to talk about, much less even admit to themselves.  Rest assured, this is more common than you think, and many moms feel stuck.   

She’s weaned her child to nursing just a few times a day but she’s having a hard time ending the last 2 feeds.  She gently says, “No, not right now.” The child cries; loud, long, and hard. Mom feels her chest tighten with guilt. She thinks to herself, “I’m so selfish.  I should follow his lead.  This must be traumatizing him!”.

She gives in, her son stops crying and the mom stops thinking and feeling horrible things about herself in the moment, yet she still feels touched out and feels stuck.  The vicious cycle continues.

Toddler sitting on the couch with her mom who is pregnant.

The Rescue Reflex

Parents often give in to setting limits when emotions get intense. It looks like:

• Changing the rule so the crying stops

• Distracting with treats to silence the storm

• Avoiding guilt or anxiety felt by parents by making the crying stop to rescue themselves from their own feelings

  
  

But toddlers don’t need rescuing. They need consistency, presence, and validation.

Crying Is Not Traumatic

When a toddler cries, they’re not being traumatized, they’re learning. With a parent’s calm presence, crying becomes a safe emotional release, not a wound.

This is co-regulation:

• The parent stays grounded, breathing through their own discomfort while sticking to the limit for the purpose of living their parenting values.

• The child learns emotions rise, peak, and fall, and they are not alone in the process.

A mom stands at a fork in the road: left is the easy path of keeping peace at any cost, right is the harder choice that honors her parenting values and builds resilience.

When Parents’ Feelings Show Up

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a powerful form of cognitive behavioral therapy.  It teaches people to allow their thoughts and feelings to be present while simultaneously taking committed action to live a life they value (not allowing thoughts and feelings to act as obstacles getting in the way).

Instead of allowing the feeling of guilt to dictate the action in the moment (giving in to avoid feeling guilt), the parent can practice acceptance: “I notice I’m having a feeling of guilt in this moment, I’m going to make room for this feeling while choosing to hold this boundary because this is important to me”.

This is committed action — choosing values (consistency, safety, love) over momentary relief.

What Children Really Need

• Consistency: Limits that don’t shift with emotions

• Presence: A parent who sits with them, not fixes them

• Validation: “I see you’re mad/sad. It’s hard when you can’t have what you want.” While also finding other ways to bond and connect.

  
  

By allowing emotions, parents teach toddlers that feelings are safe, temporary, and part of being human.

Closing thought: Parenting with ACT means embracing discomfort — yours and your child’s — with compassion. When you stop rescuing and start co-regulating, you raise children who trust their emotions, their resilience, and the steady love of their parent.

Please check back soon for an eBook that I’m writing to help you stop nursing your strong-willed toddler using ACT strategies. In the meantime, check out my free handout on strategies you can use to start weaning (go to "How-To Guides in the menu).