AP questions-- just curious...
BabyShelnutt
member
I am currently 11 weeks pregnant and I plan ahead big time... SO... I am thinking about attachment parenting to some extent. I will definitely BF for a looong while, and baby wear for a long while... I know the baby will sleep in our room for the first few months but after that, I will just have to see how things go.
My question is----- will anyone else get to even hold or be around my baby?! Will DH even be able to comfort or hold the baby if it cries?? Will it always just need ME and only ME!? What if the grandparents want to babysit?? I need to hear some experienced attachment moms explain some experiences to me. I know to a certain extent, of course, the baby should be attached to me... but I don't want it to still be 2 years old and not go near anyone else...
To some of you AP moms, I must sound like a freak! Haha... but being a daycare provider, the babies that grew up with AP were always the hardest to care for. They would cry ALL the time. COMMENTS please! Thank youuuu!!
Re: AP questions-- just curious...
I don't think AP means that mom has to be the only one providing care. I WOH full time so I'm away from DD all day and have been since she was about 6 months old, and I still successfully practice some AP principles. I look at AP as a tool box, not a set of rules that must be followed. I use the tools that are workable for our family, and leave the rest.
My DD 's separation anxiety has never been that bad and she's always been happy in the care of others, but I think that has more to do with her personality than parenting method.
My understanding of AP is that you attend to your child's needs. So you feed, and comfort them and keep them close. They get to trust you and feel secure with you.
That doesn't mean they can't feel comfortable with other people. (I have heard that babies can feel attached to 4 - 5 people, but I have no idea where I heard that or how true it is)
There will be times when they go through separation anxiety and only want Mum. Somedays that is tough.. But I try and keep my babies even closer when they feel anxious, and that seems to help them move through that phase.
If you'll be at home with your LO fulltime, then there will definitely be days when it seems that you know all the tricks to soothe LO and DH just makes them wail, but that's just a matter of your DH finding his own way and developing hiw own bond with LO.
FWIW DD1 adores my Mum, and there are plenty of times when we visit her, and DD only wants Grandma to hold her, fix her food, take her to the toilet.
Just listen to your LO, and give them what they need and it will all work out.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
This exactly. Honestly I didn't even look into parenting styles before DS was born. I'm not a planner; I like to fly by the seat of my pants. I always said I was just going to do what me instincts told me. I had no idea about AP until I stumbled onto this board, and realized that my insticts and intuition were basically AP. I think that AP is something instinctual in all moms but has been trained out of us from decades of counter intuitive advice like crying it out and and schedules and sleep training.
There are certain aspects of AP that just didn't work for our son. I really wanted DS to sleep in our bed with us. I had a co sleeper that went right in our bed, but he didn't want to sleep anywhere but in his crib. It saddened me, but we did have a bed in his nursery so we slept in there. Now we sleep in separate rooms, but its such a small apartment we can hear each other through the wall
. And as soon as he wakes up at 5AM I bring him in our bed to nurse and he falls back asleep for 2 more hours with us. Its our favorite part of the day.
I don't believe in following a "program" You'll find that much of AP is just what your mommy instincts will tell you do to anyway. Just listen to them. And don't let others make you feel like your instincts are wrong...they NEVER are.
Don't worry, DS is just as attached to my husband as he is me. He gets the BIGGEST smile when Daddy comes home and just wants to be with him.
Good luck!
I don't follow everything AP by any means. I don't think I could even necessarily call myself AP. But I don't need the label to justify my parenting anyway. I like the theory behind AP, but don't think it's a one-size fits all solution. I go to this board mostly because I think it has like-minded moms.
I do not let DD cry without being comforted, because that doesn't feel right. I do have her in my arms a lot, but not all of the time. Sometimes I put her to bed, but some of the time it's DH. I do the primary care for her, especially for the first few weeks because it was what FELT right. One of the nurses suggested that I tell people that the nurses only wanted me to hold her for the first few days. I did that because it felt right. I didn't want anyone else holding her right away (except DH). I don't leave her for long periods of time. I EBF so where I go, she goes for the most part...but that's also because I don't want to be away from her. It doesn't feel right to not have her.
I think it is important for her to spend time with extended family (aunts, uncles, grandparents). The more people who love her and the more bonds she has the better IMO. She loves them too and likes to be held and played with by them. I wouldn't rob them or her of that bond. I am still there because like I said, it doesn't FEEL right for me to be away from her. To me, part of developing strong attachments means having a solid foundation of people who care about you. When I leave her, even if it's an hour I am thinking about her and can't wait to see her again.
I don't co-sleep, (no matter how much I wanted to in my heart), because I'm afraid I'd hurt her in my sleep. But she is in our room in a crib next to our bed. When she cries in the night I am there to pick her up right away and nurse her and cuddle her.
Sometimes I carry her. Sometimes I wear her. Sometimes DH is cuddling her. Sometimes she is in a stroller. Sometimes she is playing on the floor next to me while I do dishes, etc.
I think parenting is about balance and finding the way to do what feels right for you at the time. To me the most important thing is that she feels secure and loved. Don't worry so much about doing everything 'by the book'. You'll know what is right when the time comes.
Exactly. I think it's good to have a general idea of things that you would LIKE to do when you become a parent, but I'll tell you...things change. I thought I'd do a lot of things as a parent that I don't do now and I do some things that I never really thought I would. DD was going to sleep in our room and that happened for maybe a week. I wasn't really planning on baby wearing and didn't at first, but now I love it. It's a learning process and 7.5 months in, I'm still learning every day.
On the DH question - my view is that daddy is just as much a parent as I am. True, I have the boobs but that aside, DH has been every bit as involved as I have from day 1. Even when the kids were newborns, he would wear them to sleep for naps or nighttime (when they didn't fall asleep nursing). He comforted them when they cried. Sure, they've gone through times when they wanted mama - but all kids seem to go through those phases no matter what. Both of my kids love their daddy to bits and have always gone to sleep easily for him (and often better!).
As for strangers...honestly, I think this has much to do with the child's age and personality. All children go through separation anxiety phases - that is healthy and normal! My kids have been parented the same way yet Callum is much more cautious of new situations or "shy" than is Eleanor - she is far more willing to hang out with new people than he was at her age - just different personalities.
Finally, I think it's important to remember that being an "APer" doesn't mean you wrap your kid in bubble wrap and shield them from the world, it doesn't mean you coddle or give in to their every whim - it means you are responsive to their needs and have age appropriate expectations.
I'd also suggest that many "AP babies" actually ended up as AP babies because they were "high needs" (and thus their parents turned to things like babywearing and co-sleeping for survival) - that's a likely explanation for why so many of them in your experience had a harder time with daycare. I also think that daycare providers can be a part of a baby's "AP world" - in other words, another loving person who they trust. But trust always has to be earned - even for a baby!
Breastfeeding Counselor with Breastfeeding USA
Babywearing Guide ** Newborn Carriers
Cloth Diaper Guide
Safe Bed Sharing Info
Ummm...my husband is also an AP parent and my kids are attached to him as well (even though he works and doesn't breastfeed so it is different....). We've taken advantage of every (rare) opportunity for grandparents or others to babysit. AP doesn't mean ONLY BEING A MOM for years. Look at the tenents on the API website: Balance is one of them.
My son is very attached but he is secure enough that when he with someone else he doesn't cry and is fine. He has never been watched regularly and he does cry (sometimes still) when we first leave, but then he is on his best behavior. Even when he was a baby this was true. It sounds more like perhaps helicopter parenting or something and not AP would cause kids to cry all the time in daycare...or just that particular kid's temperament.
Thank you so much! Everything you said gives me alot more peace and confidence about raising our little baby!
Honestly, I do know some "AP" kids that are super attached and can't stand to be separated from their parents even at 3 and 4. But I also think their mom is pretty weird anyway and that she has a lot to do with it
Most of the kids in my AP group are not like that.
And it's also very true that some kids are just "shy" or whatever and take a long time to warm up to others - so if you had an outgoing kid and a shy kid being raised the same in the same family, one would seem more adaptable simply due to personality. My DD is my shy child and DS is not. Sure, he'll do that momentary shy thing and hide his face for a minute, but then he's off and running and see ya later mom and DD has never been like that. I don't think I did anything different.