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

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:19pm
And your saying that you can't start gradually weaning them before they are 4. I don't have a problem with weaning them slowly as I did with mine and they aren't suffering that I can tell because they were weaned by me initially... They followed suit. If you don't need to wean them as older kids I just don't understand why they would still be on the breast....?
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:20pm
but if they want it, it gives them comfort, relaxes them, what is the difference? past a certain age mind you? i realize that infants and even toddlers nurse for comfort, it is what they know, but to me, if you are talking about an older child they should certainly have different means of finding comfort than food
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:21pm

It is not a matter of perfection at all. Neither is it a contest, as you keep trying to set it up. It simply is what it is.

Why are you so insistnet that a woman you've never met and know practically nothing about should have had the same parenting experience you had, when you readily acknowledge that our parenting styles and philosophies are completely different?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:21pm
Last I checked, mealtime included food. In fact, it's centered around food. We spend a whole lot of time talking and being together. Mealtime is one of those, but it's a time that includes the ritual of ingesting food together.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:22pm
And u wonder why the obesity rate has gone up??
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:23pm
And unless each of those obese people was nursed for an extended (four years or more) period of time, their obesity and use of junk food for comfort cannot possibly be due to extended nursing.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:25pm
I'm not saying that at all. Neither of mine made it to four as nurslings. Weaning is a gradual process that begins, I suppose, with the first bite of solid food a child ingests. It ends with the last nursing. A one year old is usually not nursing as often or intensely as a newborn. My last nursling was down to three, sometimes two, nursing periods a day by the time he was two. By the time he was three, it was just once a day, usually. Then a couple times a week. Then, "Gee, when was the last time he nursed? I don't remember. Guess he's done."
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:25pm
for our family it is just the being together, we have had the lavish thanksgiving meals and i recall one year we had meat and cheese trays, and no one has ever felt cheated, because it was never about the food but the togetherness. and i dont recall that thanksgiving being any less wonderful than any other. as long as we are together who cares what food is being served. my mom used to think that everytime the kids came home she needed to fix all this wonderful food, it took some time but we finally were able to persuade her that we werent there for the food. now when we go home we have alot of sandwiches and take out, and you know what everyone enjoys it even more because we now have more time to spend with the people we came to see, which was always what the trips home were about.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:28pm
Certainly they have other means of findiong comfort than nursing. For my kids, as toddlers, nursing was just one of many ways they could be soothed. It was a nice tool to have. And as somebody else explained, it was probably more often about the presence, closeness, exclusivity and sucking than about extracting milk from the breast.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:29pm
i have an aquaintance whose son is still nursing on occassion at 6 years old. and while i am sure they all eventually give it up at some age "I" think maybe they need a little help in giving it up
Jennie

Pages