Your decison to choose Attachment Parenting

Noreen - posted on 01/14/2010

It just kind of happened for us. With my first, I was a teen mom and thought that there was only one way to raise a baby, the traditional CIO, follow the sheep way. But I wasn't into that. We co-slept, held him ALL the time, and just followed my instints. I felt guilty of not parenting right and thought I was a bad mom. When I had my 2nd I followed suit except I refused to even think about giving a bottle. I was reading a magazine one day from when my 2nd, Noah was born and it had parent recomendation books, one was The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elisabeth Pantly and the other The Baby Book by Dr Sears. I ordered them that day and read them both and learned that how I parented was perfectly ok and BETTER then the standard way!! My confidenced grew and I applied some other ap techniques and haven't looked back! :O)



As far as Co-sleeping went for us. My boys started out in their cradle or crib at night and would end up in bed with us sometime in the middle of the night. With Abby on the other hand, at first we started out with the same technique as the boys, but then one night she just didn't want to go to sleep, so I layed down in bed while nursing her and she's been starting her night in bed with us ever since. Opps. LOL

Patricia - posted on 01/08/2010

For me it was a slow transition. My baby although born 10 days overdue was petite. I was afraid of leaving her alone in a room all by herself so initiallly she slept in a bassinet next to me. It was difficult at first because I kept on waking up every half hour to check up on her. I didnt have her sleeping with me right away because I was afraid of either myself or my husband smooshing her over the night because she was so small. After two weeks I began transferring her onto my bed once my husband left for work in the mornings. I noticed both of us got better sleep when we were together.

Eventually when my little one caught a cold that is when i finally had her sleeping with us through the night. I felt bad at first because a lot of people were telling me it was not right. It wasnt until I joined this group that I began to feel better about my choice of co-sleeping. Before I joined the group I didnt know there was a special term for this type of practice. I'm glad I ignore the negative comments and stuck with the decision to co-sleep. My baby is six months now and both her and I get the best sleep possible. When we wake up we are both refreshed and ready for the day. I feel it has also strengthend our bond as mother and child too.

Nicole - posted on 01/07/2010

It just happened. Heh, when I first heard the term I was like hmm sounds very hippy. Then I cracked a book about it (Sears) then it went like this: breastfeeding (check) baby wearing (check) bed sharing (check) baby led weaning (check). well shucks, I guess I am an attachment parent after all :D I refused to read any parenting/ sleep books while pregnant and while Phoebe was a newborn. I wanted to come to my own decisions on what to do. Well here we are fifteen months later.

Melissa - posted on 01/07/2010

My son wouldn't accept anything less from me. He would not sleep in a crib, would not take a soother (and how his Grandmas tried!). He is a human being who finds greatest comfort in the loving closeness of other human beings. I'd rather him find comfort in supportive, loving people than in objects any day. I learned about AP from a friend who has the most sensitive, intelligent and compassionate 5 year old I've ever met. She lent her Dr. Sears books to me and her back issues of Mothering and the Compleat Mother. It felt right to parent my child this way...it felt instinctual.

Vicki - posted on 01/06/2010

A conscious decision. I became interested in parenting a long time before I got pregnant so I'd done my research. Having said that my Mum was very AP (not that she called it that) so it may have just happened anyway.

Katherine - posted on 01/04/2010

Just happened. Everyone is much happier. My daughter would wake up 18 times a night and finally I said ENOUGH, she's sleeping with us. People didn't agree and Oh Well, I don't care, I'm going with my motherly instinct :)

Emily - posted on 01/03/2010

Just happened for us too. I actually read portions of Dr. Sears' book while I was pregnant and thought "This is crazy. People who sleep with their babies are ridiculous." Then I had my baby and it was like.... okay, NOW I get it!! Just happened that the choices I have made as a parent fit best in the "ap" category.. such as co-sleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, etc. though I don't treat it like a check-list that I *have* to do. These are things I would do regardless of whether there's a label for it.. just feels right.

Sammy - posted on 01/03/2010

It just happened for us also. She slept in a moses basket in my room until she was two weeks old until one night I fell asleep while nursing her and she slept for a longer stretch of time than she had previously. We've never looked back, so they say. We're still co-sleeping and breastfeeding at 12 months and to be honest I cannot see us stopping anytime soon. She's never slept in a cot, and she'll probably go straight from my bed to her own bed.
I get a lot of flack for having her in my bed, and it really bugs me.

Sarah - posted on 01/03/2010

For us it was a conscious decision. Being older parents (I was 37 when dd was born), ours was a very well researched baby. "What to Expect When You're Expecting" went right back to the store somewhere around chapter 3 or 4, when I'd had it with their focus on "everything that could possibly go wrong." I picked up Dr. Sears' Pregnancy Book instead. That led to the Baby Book and the Breastfeeding Book, and so on, all read long before she was born. I insisted that our childbirth classes were the Bradley Method, and our instructor was very pro-breastfeeding and pro-AP. All my prenatal care was conducted by midwives at a birth center where we had planned to give birth to our daughter (didn't work: breech = hospital), and they were all also very pro-bfing and AP. Shortly after dd was born, I contacted our local chapter of La Leche League, and attended meetings for awhile.



In short, I was very aware of how anti-AP our society can be, and did my best to surround us with resources and people who were supportive and knowledgeable. Dr. Sears' description of high-needs babies helped a great deal as I soon discovered that dd could have been a high-needs poster child, lol! She was perfectly healthy, but insisted on being held 24/7, nursed on demand, and was very sensitive to tags, seams, and textured clothing.



She just turned 6yo on New Year's Eve, and still nurses, still co-sleeps, and is still extremely sensitive with regard to her clothing. She is also highly intelligent (a doctor we met recently called her "scary-smart"), very imaginative, outgoing and friendly. While I never intended to nurse or co-sleep for so long, it is obvious that she still needs the close connection, and further reading and research (most notably, Katherine Dettwyler) has convinced me that it is not unusual for children to still need this kind of care at her age.

Theresa - posted on 01/02/2010

Just happened for the most part for us as well. Em cried when put down so I held or carried her. She wouldn't nap unless I held her so I held her. she initially slept in an Arm's Reach cosleeper but she started waking up as soon as I put her in it and then falling back to sleep as soon as she was in our bed. So now she sleeps in our bed. I did read a lot about Attachment Parenting as we went along though - it helped me feel not only ok with but good about how we are raising her.

Brenda - posted on 01/02/2010

Just happened for us. I didn't know there was a word for it until a good friend, and my baby sitter told me about it. It is nice to find other people that believe in doing things like I choose to do them. :)