Attachment Parenting For The Rest Of Us

I'll be the first to admit that when I first heard of attachment parenting, I wondered if people who practice it are crazy.

I mean come on...who has the time or the money or the patience to devote themselves 100% to their children?  That's not an easy thing to do and most of us are not that selfless.  We tell ourselves we are, but in reality we fall short of that standard.

When I pictured parents who practiced attachment parenting, I saw a woman who uses cloth diapers on her kids and carries them in a wrap or a sling, only uses organic food that she then purees herself while dressing her little darling in organic fibers, and makes sure that her child sleeps in the bed with her so she can dream feed without getting up out of bed.  Some of this is true while most of it is not.

Apparently I've been practicing attachment parenting in some ways without even knowing it.

I'm reading Beyond the Sling by Mayim Bialik (yes she was Blossom once upon a time and you can now see her as Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory), a book in which she talks about attachment parenting and what it really is.  I got the book from the library because I wanted something to read that would make me laugh.  Instead it's really making me think.

Nate and I like to be the primary caregivers for our son.  When he was smaller, we wore him in a carrier.  I don't like co-sleeping (the risk of smothering your child while you sleep rubs me the wrong way), but when he would cry at night, I was right there to soothe and comfort him.  Sometimes that meant being up four or five times in the night (sometimes it still does), but that was part of being a parent and I hadn't been told differently.  I breastfed and used pacifiers and when my milk dried up prematurely, I used formula until 2.0 was a year old, when he was switched to whole milk.  I use disposable diapers and I didn't make my own baby food (I really wanted to, but there just wasn't the time or the resources for it in this household).  I try to respond to my child positively, but when he does something wrong, I'm not opposed to spanking (in fact, we use that quite frequently in this house right now).  When I spank, I explain to my son the reason for the punishment (I know he can't understand me, but at this point it's more practice for me so that when he can understand, I'll do it without thinking).

This is a form of attachment parenting.

I don't like daycare, but I'm not going to bash those who use daycare.  I don't like having someone else babysit for me on a regular basis.  If someone else is with my child, I'd rather it be his father or someone he is biologically related to.  If that's not an option, then I want the caregiver to be someone he is very familiar with (Thank God we have an extended church family that 2.0 is very familiar with).  I held him as an infant all the time, even when I was told that 'holding him too much would spoil him'.  You can't spoil a baby.  It's not possible.  Even at 16 months of age, he's not capable of sociopathic manipulation to get what he wants all the time.

So before you start thinking that attachment parenting means you have to breastfeed until your child is 10 or that you can't sleep in your own bed sans child, read Beyond the Sling and check out this resource for attachment parents.  You don't have to do everything they do to care for your child this way.  Just think outside the box a little bit.