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Attachment Parenting
happywife2b
member
Refusing to hold baby for fear of "spoiling"??
happywife2b
member
I was recently shocked to hear a friend of ours say that he and his wife try not to pick up and hold their newborn daughter because they don't want her to "get spoiled." They only pick her up when she needs to be fed or changed. Aside from that, they leave her in a swing or her bassinet and pay her no mind. Apparently his mother told them to do this because she thinks it is harmful to give babies "unnecessary" attention. (!!!) I didn't know how to make a tactful response, so I just said nothing. But to me this seems like straight out neglect. Babies literally need to be held, and ignoring them until feeding/changing time just sounds abusive, even if done with 'good' intentions.
Any thoughts? Am I over-reacting? If I'm not, then how could I go about broaching the subject in a tactful way? I am really at a loss here.
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Re: Refusing to hold baby for fear of "spoiling"??
I can' t imagine someone actually thinking like that and absolutely don't understand how a mother could just ignore her baby. It's a tough situation since you didn't say anything when she mentioned it. Though I probably would have been caught off guard as well.
Are you close enough to this person to bring it up? If I were you I would find a way to talk about it. AP isn't for everyone but common sense says newborns need closeness, cuddles, affection and touch. Plenty of orphans are cared for physically but neglected emotionally. They definitely aren't spoiled but they have far more attachment and trust issues to overcome. I am also wondering what kind of pedi your friend goes to. DD' s pedi stressed the importance affection. How old is the baby? Can you give your friend some up to date information on caring for a baby? What happens when the baby becomes a child? When do they plan to start giving the baby attention? This just baffles me. Oh, and yes, it is neglect to entirely ignore a baby's need for affection.
please excuse grammatical errors bumping on mobile
My SIL was like this. I wouldn't say that they neglected my nephew cause they would pick him up and stuff when he was crying. But if he was content in his stroller, bouncer, car seat etc. then they wouldn't take him out. One time she scolded my mom because she wanted to take him out of the stroller to carry him. Her reasoning was that she wanted him to get used to not being held, that she didn't want him to constantly need attention to be happy.
It's funny because now he's almost a year old and they play with him all the time and carry him everywhere.
This post made me think of the same studies. IIRC they were with twins, one held and the other not held. The twin that wasn't held suffered from being depressed and antisocial, did not thrive as well as the twin that was held.
This. In extreme cases the babies failed to thrive and died, even though their physical needs were met.
DD2 8.22.13
MMC 1.4.17 at 16w
Expecting #3, EDD 1.29.18
H and I had this fight when Dd was born. He was told by his mom that babies needed to cry to tone their lungs and should be left to cry at least 5 minutes before being attended to, for any reason.
We asked our pedi about it at the 1 week visit because I was livid that he was treating our child and exhausted from being the only one responding to her. The pedi was horrified and informed H that until Dd turned 1 he'd better pick up his child when she cried.
House / Baby blog
DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)
I agree with you. That is absolutely shocking. Unfortunately, I find that it's really hard to tell parents anything about parenting if they are doing something that's so opposite from what I would do. I don't think you're overreacting.
Perhaps, when you're over, you can pick the baby up and just give her some extra love. Or maybe you can sort of subtly give a print out of a blog post that you find or a copy of a page of a book that you find that shows how necessary physical contact actually is. This could be something like an excerpt from The Continuum Concept where the author describes the baby being left in the cradle all day. Or it can be something that you find on the Internet.
When you give it to her, you can just say something like, "I know your mother said to do it another way, but I'm a little bit concerned. Here's some information I found. You can take it or leave it." and then sort of leave it at that.
I think it's great that you want to say something and I do think the way you say it will make a huge difference.
Uh, if the baby is content, why the hell would you bother him? I agree that never picking up your baby is neglect, but what you described isn't neglect, it's common sense.
It is not all that surprising that the grandmother would believe this, especially if she's older. Back in the day, it was considered by even eminent psychologists that holding a child and cuddling them, etc, was bad for them (especially boys).
And then Henry Harlow did an experiment with some monkeys. Details can be found here:
https://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/p/harlow_love.htm
(or just google "Henry Harlow" or 'wire mother monkey')
Suffice it to say, some of the monkey babies that were brought up with all their physical needs met, but no comfort or affection were SO deeply psychologically damaged that they had to be put down and this experiment is no longer allowed to be tried on even animals.
I recently finished my Bachelor's Degree in Child Development and Family Science. And while I know that a Bachelor's by no means makes me the end-all, be-all expert in child development, I can confidently say that these parents are wrong. Attachment Theory (which is different than Attachment Parenting, although they are related in that Attachment Parenting includes methods of fulfilling the ideas of Attachment Theory), states that babies need to attach to a primary caregiver (usually the mother).
If they successfully attach to one caregiver, this sets them up to make secure attachments for the rest of their lives. It also states that in order for babies to securely attach, they need to know that their needs will be met by said primary caregiver. This includes basic needs like eating, as well as their emotional needs. Crying is a last resort for newborn babies. Once they get to the point of crying they are very stressed. They show signs before crying ever starts that they need something, at least early on. This is all part of the scientific Theory of Attachment and is fact. I would look up some basic info on Attachment Theory from a reputable website and as PP suggested just give it to her to take or leave. How sad for that poor baby.