here's what i've got to say about attachment parenting...

WARNING: really long post to follow!

i’ve been wanting to write for some time about this whole attachment parenting thing…those of you who’ve been around this place for awhile know that i try to practice attachment parenting, which is a parenting style that emphasizes listening to your heart and intuition when it comes to your child and building a relationship with your child based on a two-way emotional attachment. i first read about AP in the baby book by william and martha sears, who have been major proponents of AP in the last couple of decades. for those totally unfamiliar with AP, here are the basics according to the searses—what they refer to as the 7 B’s of attachment parenting:

1. birth bonding—bonding with baby from the first moments and during the first days and weeks after birth
2. breastfeeding—gives baby the perfect food for the 1st year of life while promoting happy mommy hormones for mom
3. babywearing—carrying a baby for extended periods during and throughout the day, whether in one’s arms or in a sling or wrap
4. bedding close to baby—that may mean baby sleeps in bed with parents (cosleeping), or baby is kept in a crib or bassinet next to mom’s side of the bed or in the same room as parents or in a room close to parents, or whatever works so everyone gets the best sleep and the parents are close enough to effectively care for baby’s needs during the night as well as during the day.
5. belief in the language of your baby’s cries—responding sensitively to baby’s cries to meet their needs and to build trust, believing that young babies cry not because they’re spoiled or trying to manipulate you but because they have a need that needs to be met
6. beware of baby trainers—learning to discern parenting advice that would have you replace your intuition and your baby’s cues with rigid rules, schedules or cry-it-out solutions.
7. balance--attending to the needs of yourself and your partner as well as your baby's.

i would also add to this list gentle and positive discipline without corporal punishment.

i immediately identified with this style of parenting, and embraced it with the wide open arms of a novice…since then, through reading various mommyblogs and parenting sites on the web, i have discovered that AP is a hot button for many…some folks consider it a wimpy approach to parenting that will surely result in the parents’ lives being thoroughly dictated by the child…for others, AP is almost like a religion, and you will find an alarming large number of these fanatics attacking anyone who doesn’t breastfeed, wear their baby or cosleep…i’ve been quite shocked at how vicious and closed-minded some of these folks can be, and i know that this is NOT what AP is about…if anything, AP is supposed to promote PEACEFUL parenting…not MILITANTLY peaceful parenting….c’mon, that’s oxymoronic…or just plain moronic…

when i was about 28 weeks pregnant, thoroughly engrossed with the bradley method (natural childbirth) and the idea(l) of becoming an AP mom, i thought i’d found the answer to all the world’s problems…if we’d all just become AP parents, the next generation of children would be so full of love and peace, that war and violence and poverty would be eradicated… god, i am so embarrassed at my own stupidity and naivety…and they let ME become a mom?!

well, GOD, in his infinite love and wisdom, decided to steer me away from a lifetime of militantly!!peaceful!!!parenting!!!!, and he gave me a stubbornly breech baby in the womb…for those of you who don’t know, a baby will usually be in a head down position around the time they are ready to be born…breech is when they’re butt/feet down instead of head down…what this means is that 99% of mainstream OB doctors will opt for a C-section instead of trying to deliver a breech baby vaginally…so by giving me a breech baby, the good lord (i know, i know…some of you don’t believe god has anything to do with any part of our existence, but just humor me, okay?), yes the good lord shattered my dreams of a beautiful, tears-of-the-purest-joy-filled natural, drugfree, episiotomy-free vaginal birth, which would then have led to my baby immediately latching onto my breast leading to easy breastfeeding until she was at least 18 months old, which would have created the most beautiful bond between us that she’d be an angel of a child from the moment of birth until she went off to college with a full scholarship…

it’s not that i didn’t TRY to salvage my dream…many of you will remember my tearful plea for prayers that the baby would turn on its head so that i could resume my idyllic life as an AP mom the way i had envisioned it…i tried the webster technique (a chiropractic maneuver that has some success in turning breech babies), i tried moxybustion, i tried the swimming pool, i tried gravity…little cadence, however, liked the upright position in the womb, and she wasn’t turning…so bye-bye bradley method…helLOOOO c-section…

now, just because i had a c-section, i didn’t throw the whole AP thing out the window…i met with a lactation consultant everyday i was in the hospital until by golly i got the breastfeeding thing down…i had failed in turning a breech baby, i had failed in having a natural vaginal birth, and come hell or high water, i was gonna AT LEAST get the breastfeeding part right…

so anywho, this post is getting way too long and is in danger of veering off on a tangent…here’s what i wanna say about attachment parenting before i forget…

i think that the principles of AP are great, and it seems to be working for our family…cadence is a happy, healthy baby…however, i have learned that i really need to keep an open mind and do what feels right for us, not what the crazy AP fanatics say to do…

for example, due to the aforementioned c-section, i didn’t get to hold cadence for more than 2 minutes when she was first born before she was whisked away to the nursery so that i could recover from my anesthesia…i didn’t see her for at least another couple of hours, maybe more…but you know what? we still bonded…human babies aren’t like ducklings, you know…they’ll still figure out you’re the mama eventually…

also, even though i managed to breastfeed pretty well so far, i don’t know how much longer i’ll be able to keep it up…as you may have read in previous rants, my milk supply is getting low…am i gonna miss that time of bonding with her? of course i will…and i’ll do what i can to keep my supply up, but i can eat only so much oatmeal before i start losing all interest in life…so to those so-called AP moms who would shoot daggers at me with their eyes if they saw me pull out a bottle of formula, all i have to say is—would you rather i let my baby starve? huh? is that what you want??!!! and you know what else? a lot of moms end up not being able to breastfeed for one reason or another, but that doesn’t mean they love their baby any less, so get a life and stop attacking every woman who pulls out a bottle in the park or the mall…that woman may have breast cancer…or she may have suffered excruciating post partum depression…would you rather that she had forgone treatment for either and possibly ended up DEAD just so her baby could have that precious breastmilk? yeah, breast may be best, but not if the breast is on a dead mom…

and the cosleeping thing…i like not having to get out of bed to feed cadence in the middle of the night, and i love watching my daughter sleep and feeling her little foot in my hand while i doze off, but dangnabbit, our queen sized bed isn’t growing while cadence definitely is, and she’s doing gymnastics in her sleep to boot…that crib, which is just 3 feet from the bed, is looking mighty roomy these days…or maybe we just need a kingsized bed! (NOTE TO NEW PARENTS/PARENTS-TO-BE: get a king-sized bed…even if you don’t plan on co-sleeping…it’ll be inevitable to someday have a kid in bed with you, so you may as well be prepared…)

when it comes to letting baby cry it out (CIO) once they’re older, say at least 5 months old, i think that’s a decision each parent needs to make for themselves, and no one can tell you you’re wrong…i know of many parents who’ve done it in a gentle, gradual manner, and some babies will be fine, cry a few nights and then put themselves to sleep peacefully thereon out…other babies will stubbornly refuse to go to sleep on their own, and that’s okay too…cadence falls into the latter category, btw…

as for babywearing, i am totally all gungho for it…ted and i took a four hour babywearing class this sunday, and we’re more enthusiastic about it than ever…i really believe that science supports babywearing as being very beneficial to a developing baby’s physical and emotional health…not to mention you get to do things around the house…i actually helped ted get dinner ready last night by wearing cadence on my back rucksack style! other benefits of babywearing include:

• not having to lug my stroller up and down the stairs and in and out of the car trunk…i have a hate/hate relationship with strollers, light and heavy…i acknowledge their occasional necessity, but i’d rather not…
• i can go braless outside the home, and no one will know cuz carrying cadence in front in a wrap keeps my sagging nursing boobs out of sight
• that colorful wrap is so stylin’
• you always have a place to wipe your nose

neverthless, babywearing is not for everyone, and some babies might not like it, esp. if you introduce it too late…cadence didn’t really like it until she could hold her head up, but that’s cuz we introduced it kinda late…i wish i’d carried her from the beginning, but it’s kinda hard to do when you’ve got a gash healing on your bikini line and you can barely move or walk, let alone WEAR a baby…

anywho, i’m saying for the 2nd time that this is getting way too long, so just suffice it to say that AP is okay with me, but some of their advocates are nuts and i hope i don’t turn out like that…i think all parents need to think for themselves when it comes to parenting instead of being swayed by all the ‘experts’ and parenting trends…i know esp. first-time parents want so very much to get it ‘right’, but what exactly does that mean, anyway? who are you going to allow to define what ‘right’ is for you and your child? each child is unique in his or her gifts and quirks and needs, so there’s no way you can break it all down to a science…

and that's all i have to say about that...at least for now...

just wait until i write about "unschooling"...