attachment parenting

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
attachment parenting
1781
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 3:17pm

A woman I know (I used to work with her dh) practices "attachment parenting". Here is a definition (for those who don't know what it is):

"Attachment Parenting includes respecting your child's needs, feeding on demand, and answering your baby's cries. Other parts of Attachment Parenting include co-sleeping, nursing on demand, sling or other baby carrier wearing, and cloth diapering. Not all Attachment Parents practice all of the above, but never the less love the idea of Attachment Parenting and comforting their children.

Attachment parenting uses mild discipline methods and avoids all physical or emotional punishment, such as inflicting shame on a child for inappropriate behavior. Children are encouraged and allowed to sleep with their parents, and you treat your bed as the family bed. Meeting your child's needs according to the child's time frame during the early years of development is an essential part of attachment parenting. Children will be allowed to grow and learn at their own pace and not according to standard time frames."

What do you all think of attachment parenting?

I don't see attachment parenting as something a WOH parent could do, or could they? What do u think?

I am also curious to see if SAHPs vs/ WOHPs will have different opionions on this topic.

If anyone here practices attachment parenting - was your decision to do so closely linked with your decision to be a SAHP?

josee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:15am

"I still don't want my children to ever associate eating with comfort."

Why not?

I have wonderful memories of warm family meals with grandparents, etc., as a child, and they are very comforting. For example, my grandmother is dying right now. Last night, I made her famous homemade noodles, because I was sad thinking about losing her, and making her noodles was a very comforting feeling to me. I cried as I rolled them out, in fact.

Holidays in our family center around the family kitchen, where people come and hang out, cook, laugh, fight, tell stories. It is a very comfortable, happy feeling. I love being surrounded by family in the kitchen. My MIL cooks huge elaborate meals for people, for birthdays, anniveraries, when sick, etc.

A couple of years ago, I had to be hospitalized for several weeks. My coworkers would take turns bringing me lunch to my hospital room every single day. That food was very comforting, because of how it came to me much more so than how it tasted.

When my friends have babies, I always take them a homecooked meal. When a new neighbor moves in, the kids and I bake them cookies and take it over. When our neighbor helped us with part of our remodel this summer, I made my signature coconut tapicoa bunt cake for them, as it is their sons' favorite dessert. Sharing food has always been a way to share thanks, love, caring, etc.

I would never want to take away the comfoting aspect of food and turn meals into a sterile, emotionless undertaking.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:21am

They were allowed as much as they wanted. They just didn't take it.

According to my MIL, they didn't cry for milk. I would pump probably 12 or more ounces a day and leave it. I nursed befroe I went to work. I nursed as soon as I got home. But no one drank more than 4 or so ounces a day. About half at noon and half at 4:00pm or so. I could have pumped much more, but no one ate it, and I got tired of throwing away frozen milk.

Have you never heard of revserse cycling?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:23am
I don't mind my kids associating mealtime with comfort. In fact, we make a ritual of mealtimes at my house, and we are very seldom not all together for dinner. We have special meals with traditional foods for birthdays, holidays, special treats for the first and last day of school, etc. I take my kids out individually to breakfast at least once a month just to have some special time together. My husband and I like to have a glass of wine together once in awhile after the kids are in bed as a way of reconnecting. Like it or not, human beings are kind of hard wired to associate food with comfort and ritual.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-06-2004
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:44am

I am very sorry to hear about your grandmother.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:46am
i find it hard to imagine a mom who never left her child in a room without her. you never showered, you never played with the other kids, you never put in a load of laundry or fixed a meal without the baby being in the same room. you never went out with you dh or friends during that time. being mobile is several months i just cant imagine being that teathered to my child that we couldnt be in seperate rooms for that long. not saying there is anything wrong with it but i know i would start to resent my kids if i NEVER got a break, even something as simple as being in a different room from them for months at a time.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-06-2004
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:50am
I have no issue with breastmilk, of course it is beneficial.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:53am
I didn't say that I personally was never away from my kids. I'm not sure how you came up with that. I WOH. I am away on a pretty regular basis. I just don't leave them alone, where another adult isn't within hearing range, so that we wouldn't hear them asking for food without needing to first have an all out screaming, crying meltdown out of hunger.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:55am

Just for Fun -- Biblical Evidence for Attachment Parenting:hist

Disclaimer: I am a Christian but not one that believes we are supposed to slavishly copy everything that's in the Bible just because it's in the Bible. But I have found comfort over the years from some of the concepts expressed in the following verses:

Evidence for Baby Wearing from Numbers 11:12: "Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers'? (Context -- Moses is complaining that God has given him too much responsibility over a rebellious people, responsibility that he didn't want or ask for)

Evidence for Extended Nursing: The story of Samuel, who was brought to the priest Eli to be a servant as soon as he was weaned. A thirteen month old isn't much use as a servant.

Evidence for Nursing for Comfort: Isaiah 66: 10-13:

Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her:
That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon sides, and be dandled upon knees. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

Evidence for Breastfeeding on Demand from Lamentations 4:3-4-4:

Even the jackals give the breast and suckle their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. he tongue of the nursling cleaves to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them.

Evidence for Co-Sleeping:
And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?
And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:55am

Since there is no compasios to the nutrition between breatmilk and a hoho or cookie, I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would equate the two.

I'm sorry about your grandfather, but it is wonderful, nonetheless, to places to recreate memories and comfort, even surrounding food. To me, that is much closer to nursing than a hoho is to nursing.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-06-2004
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:59am

Ok, are you seriously bringing religion into this?

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