Attachment Parenting = Securely Attached Child?
April 30, 2015 1:08 PM Subscribe
Have attachment parenting concepts been scientifically validated? do they really increase the chances of raising a securely attached child?
I've been reading about attachment parenting (infant wearing, co-sleeping/bedsharing, breastfeeding past 1 year etc.) and I am wondering if these methods have been scientifically validated to increase the likelihood of a child being securely attached. By that I mean, do AP principles increase the likelihood that a child will be securely attached, over and above a) what is predicted by general population (from what I understand, approx. 2/3 of adults are securely attached) and b) the attachment style of the mother (a securely attached mother in general creates a securely attached child anyways). Has attachment parenting been around long enough for the longitudinal studies to be available?
I know this is a hot topic. I just want to know what the studies show. I am talking about a very specific psychological concept of being securely attached (vs. avoidant or anxious). Everyone has their personal opinion about what feels good or promotes well-being or confidence in a child, but in this case I just mean the Ainsworth definition of secure attachment. I found this interesting summary of studies that showed the AP principles weren't specifically what caused a secure attachment, and that it is more the quality of communication between caregiver/child that predicts secure attachment, as well as how the parent mentalizes the child's experience. Somehow that makes more sense to me - if you enter into the "dance" of a relationship with a baby, reading each other and communicating, the baby will feel connected - they will feel like, hey I exist, and you understand me! If the parent misses the communication cues all the time, the baby will be like: what. the. hell. You don't get me, and I am all alone. But I struggle to understand how prolonged breastfeeding, cosleeping and so on are "must have" points that make or break a secure attachment. I wonder if they make the parent feel better (it is so hard to let go of someone you love so much, even for one night), and for the child they may feel good but don't actually change the quality of their attachment, especially if other more important factors (like accurate, sensitive communication) are left out. If I cosleep with my baby, will they rate "secure" on the strange situation test? It's that simple? Everyone I've talked to has just assumed I'll sleep with my baby until 6 months, and I can't tell if it's just trendy or really makes a difference. I am not securely attached myself, and part of me sees AP as somewhat anti-feminist, but if I can really see that these principles work then of course I'll do them. FWIW neither I am a proponent of the "cry it out" methodology, and I know you can't spoil your baby in the first 3 months since they are in the "4th trimester" and need consistent responsive TLC, I just wasn't expecting to have to sleep with my baby every night until 6 months or breastfeed after 1 year. I really thought it would be more important to feel understood via sensitive play & communication than to have one's physical needs met in the specific way that AP prescribes. But I am open to being convinced otherwise. Friends, me-fites, urban-people, lend me your studies.
I've been reading about attachment parenting (infant wearing, co-sleeping/bedsharing, breastfeeding past 1 year etc.) and I am wondering if these methods have been scientifically validated to increase the likelihood of a child being securely attached. By that I mean, do AP principles increase the likelihood that a child will be securely attached, over and above a) what is predicted by general population (from what I understand, approx. 2/3 of adults are securely attached) and b) the attachment style of the mother (a securely attached mother in general creates a securely attached child anyways). Has attachment parenting been around long enough for the longitudinal studies to be available?
I know this is a hot topic. I just want to know what the studies show. I am talking about a very specific psychological concept of being securely attached (vs. avoidant or anxious). Everyone has their personal opinion about what feels good or promotes well-being or confidence in a child, but in this case I just mean the Ainsworth definition of secure attachment. I found this interesting summary of studies that showed the AP principles weren't specifically what caused a secure attachment, and that it is more the quality of communication between caregiver/child that predicts secure attachment, as well as how the parent mentalizes the child's experience. Somehow that makes more sense to me - if you enter into the "dance" of a relationship with a baby, reading each other and communicating, the baby will feel connected - they will feel like, hey I exist, and you understand me! If the parent misses the communication cues all the time, the baby will be like: what. the. hell. You don't get me, and I am all alone. But I struggle to understand how prolonged breastfeeding, cosleeping and so on are "must have" points that make or break a secure attachment. I wonder if they make the parent feel better (it is so hard to let go of someone you love so much, even for one night), and for the child they may feel good but don't actually change the quality of their attachment, especially if other more important factors (like accurate, sensitive communication) are left out. If I cosleep with my baby, will they rate "secure" on the strange situation test? It's that simple? Everyone I've talked to has just assumed I'll sleep with my baby until 6 months, and I can't tell if it's just trendy or really makes a difference. I am not securely attached myself, and part of me sees AP as somewhat anti-feminist, but if I can really see that these principles work then of course I'll do them. FWIW neither I am a proponent of the "cry it out" methodology, and I know you can't spoil your baby in the first 3 months since they are in the "4th trimester" and need consistent responsive TLC, I just wasn't expecting to have to sleep with my baby every night until 6 months or breastfeed after 1 year. I really thought it would be more important to feel understood via sensitive play & communication than to have one's physical needs met in the specific way that AP prescribes. But I am open to being convinced otherwise. Friends, me-fites, urban-people, lend me your studies.
Best answer: This article seems to back up your idea that attachment is highly predicted by lots of parent/infant communication and engagement, and that attachment parenting is maybe a set of techniques designed to encourage this, but not necessarily the only kinds of parenting that can encourage strong attachment. It also cites a 2001 paper by Sears and Sears which appears to say the same thing, but I couldn't track that down myself.
For what it is worth, my general baseline assumption is that there are a lot of ways to parent and still be "doing it right." Pay attention to your kid, try to take care of yourself too, and do your best with what you have. If you are fitting yourself into a badly-fitting set of guidelines such that you're constantly miserable and frustrated, your kid is going to pick up on that and probably become distressed--even if that same set of guidelines works really really well for some other mom and her kid. Pay attention to your kid and their signals and do whatever works best for both them and yourself, and you will probably be fine.
posted by sciatrix at 1:37 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
For what it is worth, my general baseline assumption is that there are a lot of ways to parent and still be "doing it right." Pay attention to your kid, try to take care of yourself too, and do your best with what you have. If you are fitting yourself into a badly-fitting set of guidelines such that you're constantly miserable and frustrated, your kid is going to pick up on that and probably become distressed--even if that same set of guidelines works really really well for some other mom and her kid. Pay attention to your kid and their signals and do whatever works best for both them and yourself, and you will probably be fine.
posted by sciatrix at 1:37 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Disclaimer: not a parent myself, but that general guideline of doing whatever is most comfortable and works for you and your kid has been a theme in pretty much everything to do with psych and behavior that I've looked at.
posted by sciatrix at 1:39 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by sciatrix at 1:39 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah I'm afraid you're probably going to get a lot of anecdata rather than cites to studies, but from my own experience with attachment parenting all the various points, like baby-led weaning/cosleeping etc, are just techniques to promote the underlying connection between parent and child. I also don't see attachment parenting as anti-feminist since ideally it should require equal effort from both parents. Again, sorry this isn't a direct answer to your question, but if I were you I'd focus less on hitting the attachment parenting bullet points and more on ensuring your child feels connected and secure so that they can grow to interact with the world confidently.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:40 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:40 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't know of any specific studies, which I know you're looking for, so I'll try to keep my comment short. But in my experience, a lot of the pro-AP literature is filled with appeals to emotion and so subtly propagandic that you don't catch it right away. (Same with a lot of the more extreme breastfeeding advice, which warns you not to ever use formula lest your milk supply dry up, etc.) When I was expecting, I read the Sears' Baby Book, which is very heavy on the AP stuff, and I came away similarly perplexed and intimidated. I later read a variety of other books (my current go-to is Your Baby's First Year) and now take all that co-sleeping extended-breastfeeding stuff with a tremendous helping of salt. Even cry-it-out, which sounds barbaric, is not really that bad - it's about teaching the baby to self-soothe.
I highly recommend reading multiple books with different approaches to parenting. Whatever overlaps is solid advice. For the things that differ, go with your mind and your gut.
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:41 PM on April 30, 2015 [15 favorites]
I highly recommend reading multiple books with different approaches to parenting. Whatever overlaps is solid advice. For the things that differ, go with your mind and your gut.
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:41 PM on April 30, 2015 [15 favorites]
Best answer: A few studies:
Demographics of Attachment Parents
Co-sleeping: Help or hindrance for young children's independence?
Consistency in infant sleeping arrangements and mother–infant interaction
Breastfeeding, Sensitivity, and Attachment
I'm sure there are an equal number of studies finding the exact opposite conclusions as well, and I'd be concerned about selection bias (see the demographics article above). Do what works best for all parties involved (i.e., even assuming, arguendo, that co-sleeping is best for baby's attachment, it's not going to be so great if it baby's parent(s) can't get any sleep w/ that arrangement).
posted by melissasaurus at 1:43 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Demographics of Attachment Parents
Co-sleeping: Help or hindrance for young children's independence?
Consistency in infant sleeping arrangements and mother–infant interaction
Breastfeeding, Sensitivity, and Attachment
I'm sure there are an equal number of studies finding the exact opposite conclusions as well, and I'd be concerned about selection bias (see the demographics article above). Do what works best for all parties involved (i.e., even assuming, arguendo, that co-sleeping is best for baby's attachment, it's not going to be so great if it baby's parent(s) can't get any sleep w/ that arrangement).
posted by melissasaurus at 1:43 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Also worth noting: infant attachment is not the sort of thing that you can either do perfectly and then your kid is healthy and awesome forever, or else you mess up once and you doom your child to a life of anxiety and woe. You know? There's really not that much correlation between the attachment level of toddlers and the attachment of those same people as measured at age eighteen.
So you know what? Even if you mess up and your kid winds up not perfectly attached as a toddler or a small child, you can still build attachment and connection between you and your kid as they grow up. Being invested and paying close attention to how the kid reacts and is feeling about things matters a lot, and that's the sort of thing you can do at any age.
posted by sciatrix at 1:51 PM on April 30, 2015 [14 favorites]
So you know what? Even if you mess up and your kid winds up not perfectly attached as a toddler or a small child, you can still build attachment and connection between you and your kid as they grow up. Being invested and paying close attention to how the kid reacts and is feeling about things matters a lot, and that's the sort of thing you can do at any age.
posted by sciatrix at 1:51 PM on April 30, 2015 [14 favorites]
Best answer: Also:
Feminism and Attachment Parenting: Attitudes, Stereotypes, and Misperceptions
Attachment parenting is not necessarily anti-feminist in theory,* but, as put into practice by certain people and groups can result anti-feminist attitudes (this is a decent article). It's also not intersectional, at all.
*Provided you substitute all references to "mother" with "gestational parent." AP emphases the attachment of the child and the gestational parent, which can lead to the diminished importance of the nongestational parent (regardless of gender), except insofar as the nongestational parent supports the child/gestational-parent unit through non-childrearing things (e.g., it's hard to breastfeed on demand for a year if you're working full time outside the home).
posted by melissasaurus at 1:55 PM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Feminism and Attachment Parenting: Attitudes, Stereotypes, and Misperceptions
Attachment parenting is not necessarily anti-feminist in theory,* but, as put into practice by certain people and groups can result anti-feminist attitudes (this is a decent article). It's also not intersectional, at all.
*Provided you substitute all references to "mother" with "gestational parent." AP emphases the attachment of the child and the gestational parent, which can lead to the diminished importance of the nongestational parent (regardless of gender), except insofar as the nongestational parent supports the child/gestational-parent unit through non-childrearing things (e.g., it's hard to breastfeed on demand for a year if you're working full time outside the home).
posted by melissasaurus at 1:55 PM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Best answer: Secure attachment is predicated on the infant trusting that their needs will be met by people who love them and show affection to them. I don't think strictly following "attachment parenting" advice is the only way for those criteria to be met. If you really don't like the idea of cosleeping or breastfeeding to a year I wouldn't beat yourself up over it, do what works for you.
I feel like "attachment parenting" is distinct from research on "attachment theory", and I have studied attachment theory at a very high academic level with an attachment theory expert. I do not know all of the research but the attachment theory interventions for families/mothers and infants that I am aware of involve helping the caregivers become more sensitive to their infants bids for attention and are not about say making them sleep together or breastfeed. The studies I've read involve mothers with a history of trauma who may have PTSD or depression and consequently fail to notice little things their infants are communicated sometimes, like they aren't as responsive during play, or have these little blips where they're not fully present.
Correlational studies likely show that attachment parenting/cosleeping/extended breastfeeding have positive results but (and I'm guessing here) those parents who do those things likely also have fewer risk factors related to insecure attachment patterns (e.g. history of trauma, low income, divorced/single parents, etc.).
FWIW I wasn't able to breastfeed my son to a year (made it over 6 months), we do cosleep, but I went back to work when he was 3 months old so he spent a lot of time separated from me as a result (he was with his grandmothers). At nearly 4 years old he seems secure with me, his dad, and his other caregivers (excitedly comes running to me when I come to pick him up, prefers me when he's sick, and he trusts me).
posted by lafemma at 2:04 PM on April 30, 2015 [10 favorites]
I feel like "attachment parenting" is distinct from research on "attachment theory", and I have studied attachment theory at a very high academic level with an attachment theory expert. I do not know all of the research but the attachment theory interventions for families/mothers and infants that I am aware of involve helping the caregivers become more sensitive to their infants bids for attention and are not about say making them sleep together or breastfeed. The studies I've read involve mothers with a history of trauma who may have PTSD or depression and consequently fail to notice little things their infants are communicated sometimes, like they aren't as responsive during play, or have these little blips where they're not fully present.
Correlational studies likely show that attachment parenting/cosleeping/extended breastfeeding have positive results but (and I'm guessing here) those parents who do those things likely also have fewer risk factors related to insecure attachment patterns (e.g. history of trauma, low income, divorced/single parents, etc.).
FWIW I wasn't able to breastfeed my son to a year (made it over 6 months), we do cosleep, but I went back to work when he was 3 months old so he spent a lot of time separated from me as a result (he was with his grandmothers). At nearly 4 years old he seems secure with me, his dad, and his other caregivers (excitedly comes running to me when I come to pick him up, prefers me when he's sick, and he trusts me).
posted by lafemma at 2:04 PM on April 30, 2015 [10 favorites]
I would also read up on positive parenting as an alternative. I have found it to be the best parenting advice for me in addition to books that take a more medical approach like Caring for Your Baby and Child.
I found Weissbluth, Happy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to be the best book on sleep for us.
I was unable to breastfeed exclusively due to baby's weight loss. We did not cosleep, but I was not OK with the elevated SIDS risk of cosleeping. (If you do cosleep, make sure you read what the risk factors are, e.g., soft bedding, etc).
I looked for studies but it seems on first glance like people who write about positive parenting generally don't talk about attachment parenting and vice versa.
posted by typecloud at 2:14 PM on April 30, 2015
I found Weissbluth, Happy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to be the best book on sleep for us.
I was unable to breastfeed exclusively due to baby's weight loss. We did not cosleep, but I was not OK with the elevated SIDS risk of cosleeping. (If you do cosleep, make sure you read what the risk factors are, e.g., soft bedding, etc).
I looked for studies but it seems on first glance like people who write about positive parenting generally don't talk about attachment parenting and vice versa.
posted by typecloud at 2:14 PM on April 30, 2015
I have no studies, but sleeping with or very near to an exclusively breast fed baby allows the mother more sleep, generally, because she doesn't have to get out of bed and become fully awake to nurse. It's really more of a practical thing than anything.
And most mainstream docs recommend 1 year of nursing. I think the WHO wants 2 years of nursing. I'm sure that is science backed, but I don't have the studies.
posted by littlewater at 2:31 PM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
And most mainstream docs recommend 1 year of nursing. I think the WHO wants 2 years of nursing. I'm sure that is science backed, but I don't have the studies.
posted by littlewater at 2:31 PM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I think you sense correctly that the distilled essence of attachment parenting generates secure attachments - being tuned into the needs of your child - but the exact prescribed approaches generate a correlation rather than a causation.
Here is an analogy about language development. When being advised to talk to your baby, you'll often hear that "kids who are exposed to more speech learn more words." But it's actually more subtle than that - it's much less effective to babble off a random stream of consciousness (or, say, recite the dictionary) than it is to notice what your baby is looking at and then talk about that. In general, the two tend to go together. People who talk to their babies a lot are probably more likely to talk about topics of interest to their baby than people who rarely talk to their babies.
Similarly, people who find attachment parenting techniques appealing will probably build a strong bond with their baby. If you leave your baby in a playpen all day and never look at her, you will probably not build that bond. But if you cosleep and hate every second of it, you also won't build that bond. Conversely, if you regularly pay attention to what the baby is paying attention to, you build a feedback loop of engagement from both sides.
posted by telepanda at 2:33 PM on April 30, 2015 [7 favorites]
Here is an analogy about language development. When being advised to talk to your baby, you'll often hear that "kids who are exposed to more speech learn more words." But it's actually more subtle than that - it's much less effective to babble off a random stream of consciousness (or, say, recite the dictionary) than it is to notice what your baby is looking at and then talk about that. In general, the two tend to go together. People who talk to their babies a lot are probably more likely to talk about topics of interest to their baby than people who rarely talk to their babies.
Similarly, people who find attachment parenting techniques appealing will probably build a strong bond with their baby. If you leave your baby in a playpen all day and never look at her, you will probably not build that bond. But if you cosleep and hate every second of it, you also won't build that bond. Conversely, if you regularly pay attention to what the baby is paying attention to, you build a feedback loop of engagement from both sides.
posted by telepanda at 2:33 PM on April 30, 2015 [7 favorites]
Best answer: More anecdata, but: my parents did not cosleep, wear me, or breastfeed even one single time, and I am definitely a securely attached person. If you are nurturing and loving and meet your baby's actual needs, they'll be fine. All this stuff is really trendy right now, but tbh the kinds of parents who participate in "attachment parenting" tend to be people who have a lot of privilege (time, money) anyway, and their kids will be fine whether or not they cosleep.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 3:02 PM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by goodbyewaffles at 3:02 PM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
I think the WHO wants 2 years of nursing
I think that's for children in very poor, developing country circumstances who would otherwise be getting sub-par nutrition once weaned. So-called 'pap' and stuff like that. The WHO did surveys on infants and children and found breast-fed toddlers were much healthier than expected given the food resources available in poor areas.
posted by glasseyes at 3:17 PM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think that's for children in very poor, developing country circumstances who would otherwise be getting sub-par nutrition once weaned. So-called 'pap' and stuff like that. The WHO did surveys on infants and children and found breast-fed toddlers were much healthier than expected given the food resources available in poor areas.
posted by glasseyes at 3:17 PM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
If you don't want to breast feed for so long and do it reluctantly, if you experience more than 6 months of co-sleeping as burdensome, that is, if these don't feel right to you, they won't feel right to the child either.
posted by Obscure Reference at 3:44 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Obscure Reference at 3:44 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: It sounds like an excellent seed for someone's psychology dissertation. It seems accurate that physical contact and literal "attachment" does not necessarily lead to secure attachment in the sense of mental schema. Attachment as it's used by psychologists refers to a pattern of interaction with those caregivers and loved ones.
Creating a situation where you are never physically separated from your baby and always have a touch connection certainly creates a pattern of interaction with caregivers, but I don't think it's necessarily a healthy or "securely attached" one. And one can also imagine a situation where a child's emotional and communicative needs are misunderstood or ignored within the "attachment parenting" framework and I'd imagine that would create confusion for the child if touch was disassociate from love in that way.
posted by mermily at 3:54 PM on April 30, 2015
Creating a situation where you are never physically separated from your baby and always have a touch connection certainly creates a pattern of interaction with caregivers, but I don't think it's necessarily a healthy or "securely attached" one. And one can also imagine a situation where a child's emotional and communicative needs are misunderstood or ignored within the "attachment parenting" framework and I'd imagine that would create confusion for the child if touch was disassociate from love in that way.
posted by mermily at 3:54 PM on April 30, 2015
Best answer: The reason there are no great studies on this is because you can't do a randomized controlled trial of a parenting method. Every study is confounded by the fact that certain people choose to do things with their kids a certain way for specific reasons that relate to who they are and that can affect results.
Sibling or twin studies are about the best you can get because the siblings grew up in the same families, which minimizes the confounding to the greatest extent possible. Here's one about breastfeeding and it did not show any significant effects, although it was not looking at attachment, it was looking at intelligence and behavioral issues. You might also enjoy this essay, "The Case Against Breastfeeding" by Hanna Rosin, in which she reviews recent evidence. I've breastfed both my babies, but I still think this is a great piece of writing. It also definitely speaks to your anti-feminism concerns.
I've read quite a bit online since becoming a parent about things like baby sleep science but I've never found anything that I thought was really scientifically solid - I've seen some raging articles attacking "crying it out" based on "research" but a closer look at the articles has revealed them to be scientifically lacking, i.e. animal studies etc. As a side note, if you are interested in evidence based parenting, and haven't read it already, check out NurtureShock.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 5:50 PM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Sibling or twin studies are about the best you can get because the siblings grew up in the same families, which minimizes the confounding to the greatest extent possible. Here's one about breastfeeding and it did not show any significant effects, although it was not looking at attachment, it was looking at intelligence and behavioral issues. You might also enjoy this essay, "The Case Against Breastfeeding" by Hanna Rosin, in which she reviews recent evidence. I've breastfed both my babies, but I still think this is a great piece of writing. It also definitely speaks to your anti-feminism concerns.
I've read quite a bit online since becoming a parent about things like baby sleep science but I've never found anything that I thought was really scientifically solid - I've seen some raging articles attacking "crying it out" based on "research" but a closer look at the articles has revealed them to be scientifically lacking, i.e. animal studies etc. As a side note, if you are interested in evidence based parenting, and haven't read it already, check out NurtureShock.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 5:50 PM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Hey there. First time mother of a near-six-month-old here.
One thing I find really helpful in evaluating all the parenting philosophies out there these days is to research and evaluate WHY those philosophies exist; and often, what they're in response to. Some examples:
(1) "Exclusively breastfeed until six months, breastfeed as the primary source of calories and hydration until two years!" True. The WHO says that. As someone above mentioned, that's largely advice built on research in areas with poor nutrition and potentially contaminated water supplies. In those cases, that is absolutely 100% the right advice, so far as the mother is able to follow it. It does not mean that you as a parent in a developed country with lots of nutrititious food and clean water available to you are a bad person for not following it to the letter. If you can/want to follow it, awesome! It's perfectly fine to do so (and suggestions that it's not healthy to do so are inaccurate)! If not, also okay!
(2) "Never use a pacifier especially in the first six weeks! Nipple confusion!" See also: anything but a bare boob, including nipple shields and bottles. I had a lot of trouble with breastfeeding early on because my daughter was severely tongue tied, so in the first three weeks until we could get it fixed, though I was completely committed to exclusively breastfeeding, she ended up having all her breastmilk expressed and fed through a bottle, supplementation from formula also in a bottle, and eventually breastfeeding with me using nipple shields. Basically, everything they say not to do. But it was all on the advice of three different lactation consultants I had to see throughout the course of things, who each confided to me that in their decades of midwifery and lactation consulting they could count on one hand the number of babies they'd ever seen get genuine nipple confusion, or refuse going back to the breast; the advice is there just to try to encourage mothers to keep working at breastfeeding rather than giving up, or to avoid using things like nipple shields incorrectly (which can affect a non-shielded latch if you go back to it, and possibly cause a mother to give up completely). One also told me the advice against pacifiers is just to keep parents from mistakenly giving a baby a pacifier to calm it down when crying, when the parents don't recognize that the crying is due to hunger, and thus delaying a baby's natural cycle for feeding and affecting the mother's milk supply, which is built up on-demand in the first six weeks.
So similarly, I look at the attachment parenting advice and try to figure out the motivation behind its current prevalence as a philosophy. For one, I consider the advice my parents had when I was a baby: formula supplementation is normal and desirable if it gets you more sleep. Co-sleeping is dangerous and you should never do it. Strollers and baby bouncers abound. Babies should have a strict schedule for feeding, and if they're complaining for food before it's time for their next meal, you can and should delay it. Etc.
Plenty of us turned out just fine on that philosophy. I consider myself a happily securely attached person, and my brother as well, even though while I was breastfed he was bottlefed goats milk (not even formula!) due to a milk protein allergy. We were never worn except in a backpack sometimes for the occasional hike through the woods, co-sleeping certainly never happened, blah blah blah. We were fine!
But not all of that advice is necessarily the best, or desirable now that we know more about child development. Turns out breast milk really is useful if you can manage it round-the-clock, and your supply will stay higher if you do so, so if you can manage it, if you are breastfeeding, better not to formula supplement purely for convenience. Babywearing means the baby spends more time feeling and smelling you rather than isolated in a stroller or bouncer or whatever other seat -- let's be honest, most people prefer human physical contact than not -- plus it incidentally gives a newborn more time not on its back to help prevent flat spots, so yeah, I can see the benefit there - and it's far more convenient in narrow places like farmer's markets where a stroller is in the way, and it's good to have both hands free for things like grocery shopping. Having a strict feeding schedule may be convenient and may have provided parents with a sense of discipline, but if a baby's hungry, it's hungry - there isn't really any negotiating with it, and when your breastmilk supply is built up on-demand, it's important to respond to "baby is hungry" rather than "oh, she shouldn't want to eat for another 45 mins, I'm just going to distract her till then." Plus, from a communication standpoint, nothing clearly says "okay, yep, I agree you're hungry" to a crying baby like boobs that hurt or are leaking because they're full and ready. So in that respect, the breastfeeding becomes important - your body naturally reminds you when it's time for the baby to eat, just as the baby tells you it's time, and neither your body nor the baby is likely to know or care whether it's Officially Dinnertime according to some arbitrary schedule. As a result you learn to better associate the baby's signals for "I'm hungry!" so when you do transition away from exclusive breastfeeding, you recognize and respond more quickly to their hunger and they're happier about it.
So from an AP standpoint I am all about the exclusive breastfeeding, the on-demand feeding, and babywearing/skin to skin for both me and her father when we can manage it. Breastfeeding will go on until she or I decides it's time to stop (and she started demanding solids pretty early, so she may self-wean early) and I won't make myself miserable or force her to do something she doesn't want to do; if that's before 12 months, fine, if it's after 12 months, also fine.
Co-sleeping my husband and I never had any interest in doing, because neither of us can relax with RISK OF SIDS enough to sleep deeply and we both really, really value quality sleep; I'm prone to migraines if my sleep schedule screws up so with nighttime breastfeeding as it is, the last thing I need is to be sleeping lightly when I do finally get to pass out. Hell, the kid was out of our room at 8 weeks and into her own nursery, because she's a loud sleeper and would have an hour of sleep-grunting in the mornings that would have us awake well before we needed to be, and sleep was already at a premium. That said, my husband travels a lot for work, and there have been nights I've brought her into bed with me because she has a cold and is screaming and eating way more often than usual, or is fussy from teething, or simply is wide awake and won't go back to sleep in her own bed, and by myself I can't handle being wide awake to deal with that, so I just move the blankets and pillows away in my bed and we fall asleep with her feeding next to me. For me, this as-needed basis works. I feel absolutely zero guilt about not making co-sleeping a lifestyle choice but I'm totally supportive of friends and family I know who do it in a healthy way.
So tl;dr: I encourage you to similarly evaluate these philosophies for yourself, and pick and choose as is appropriate for you and your family. Your baby is different from all other babies. Either of you may have a medical reason breastfeeding doesn't work out. Life happens and a decision you make now may no longer make sense for you. Co-sleeping might work for a bit and then you decide it doesn't, or maybe you start without it but you adopt it later on. Maybe you simply feel strongly about not doing it, or not breastfeeding, at all. That's fine. You don't have to 100% subscribe to any parenting doctrine. My sister in law, my best friend, and I all have similarly aged babies and we've all adopted varying levels of AP ideas -- I am the least subscribing of the three -- and I expect all three of our kids are going to grow up as happy, well-adjusted, securely attached children, because when it comes down to it, all of them have parents putting a lot of thought and care into parenting decisions and working hard to do what is best. Fundamentally, I think that's the key.
posted by olinerd at 7:08 PM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
One thing I find really helpful in evaluating all the parenting philosophies out there these days is to research and evaluate WHY those philosophies exist; and often, what they're in response to. Some examples:
(1) "Exclusively breastfeed until six months, breastfeed as the primary source of calories and hydration until two years!" True. The WHO says that. As someone above mentioned, that's largely advice built on research in areas with poor nutrition and potentially contaminated water supplies. In those cases, that is absolutely 100% the right advice, so far as the mother is able to follow it. It does not mean that you as a parent in a developed country with lots of nutrititious food and clean water available to you are a bad person for not following it to the letter. If you can/want to follow it, awesome! It's perfectly fine to do so (and suggestions that it's not healthy to do so are inaccurate)! If not, also okay!
(2) "Never use a pacifier especially in the first six weeks! Nipple confusion!" See also: anything but a bare boob, including nipple shields and bottles. I had a lot of trouble with breastfeeding early on because my daughter was severely tongue tied, so in the first three weeks until we could get it fixed, though I was completely committed to exclusively breastfeeding, she ended up having all her breastmilk expressed and fed through a bottle, supplementation from formula also in a bottle, and eventually breastfeeding with me using nipple shields. Basically, everything they say not to do. But it was all on the advice of three different lactation consultants I had to see throughout the course of things, who each confided to me that in their decades of midwifery and lactation consulting they could count on one hand the number of babies they'd ever seen get genuine nipple confusion, or refuse going back to the breast; the advice is there just to try to encourage mothers to keep working at breastfeeding rather than giving up, or to avoid using things like nipple shields incorrectly (which can affect a non-shielded latch if you go back to it, and possibly cause a mother to give up completely). One also told me the advice against pacifiers is just to keep parents from mistakenly giving a baby a pacifier to calm it down when crying, when the parents don't recognize that the crying is due to hunger, and thus delaying a baby's natural cycle for feeding and affecting the mother's milk supply, which is built up on-demand in the first six weeks.
So similarly, I look at the attachment parenting advice and try to figure out the motivation behind its current prevalence as a philosophy. For one, I consider the advice my parents had when I was a baby: formula supplementation is normal and desirable if it gets you more sleep. Co-sleeping is dangerous and you should never do it. Strollers and baby bouncers abound. Babies should have a strict schedule for feeding, and if they're complaining for food before it's time for their next meal, you can and should delay it. Etc.
Plenty of us turned out just fine on that philosophy. I consider myself a happily securely attached person, and my brother as well, even though while I was breastfed he was bottlefed goats milk (not even formula!) due to a milk protein allergy. We were never worn except in a backpack sometimes for the occasional hike through the woods, co-sleeping certainly never happened, blah blah blah. We were fine!
But not all of that advice is necessarily the best, or desirable now that we know more about child development. Turns out breast milk really is useful if you can manage it round-the-clock, and your supply will stay higher if you do so, so if you can manage it, if you are breastfeeding, better not to formula supplement purely for convenience. Babywearing means the baby spends more time feeling and smelling you rather than isolated in a stroller or bouncer or whatever other seat -- let's be honest, most people prefer human physical contact than not -- plus it incidentally gives a newborn more time not on its back to help prevent flat spots, so yeah, I can see the benefit there - and it's far more convenient in narrow places like farmer's markets where a stroller is in the way, and it's good to have both hands free for things like grocery shopping. Having a strict feeding schedule may be convenient and may have provided parents with a sense of discipline, but if a baby's hungry, it's hungry - there isn't really any negotiating with it, and when your breastmilk supply is built up on-demand, it's important to respond to "baby is hungry" rather than "oh, she shouldn't want to eat for another 45 mins, I'm just going to distract her till then." Plus, from a communication standpoint, nothing clearly says "okay, yep, I agree you're hungry" to a crying baby like boobs that hurt or are leaking because they're full and ready. So in that respect, the breastfeeding becomes important - your body naturally reminds you when it's time for the baby to eat, just as the baby tells you it's time, and neither your body nor the baby is likely to know or care whether it's Officially Dinnertime according to some arbitrary schedule. As a result you learn to better associate the baby's signals for "I'm hungry!" so when you do transition away from exclusive breastfeeding, you recognize and respond more quickly to their hunger and they're happier about it.
So from an AP standpoint I am all about the exclusive breastfeeding, the on-demand feeding, and babywearing/skin to skin for both me and her father when we can manage it. Breastfeeding will go on until she or I decides it's time to stop (and she started demanding solids pretty early, so she may self-wean early) and I won't make myself miserable or force her to do something she doesn't want to do; if that's before 12 months, fine, if it's after 12 months, also fine.
Co-sleeping my husband and I never had any interest in doing, because neither of us can relax with RISK OF SIDS enough to sleep deeply and we both really, really value quality sleep; I'm prone to migraines if my sleep schedule screws up so with nighttime breastfeeding as it is, the last thing I need is to be sleeping lightly when I do finally get to pass out. Hell, the kid was out of our room at 8 weeks and into her own nursery, because she's a loud sleeper and would have an hour of sleep-grunting in the mornings that would have us awake well before we needed to be, and sleep was already at a premium. That said, my husband travels a lot for work, and there have been nights I've brought her into bed with me because she has a cold and is screaming and eating way more often than usual, or is fussy from teething, or simply is wide awake and won't go back to sleep in her own bed, and by myself I can't handle being wide awake to deal with that, so I just move the blankets and pillows away in my bed and we fall asleep with her feeding next to me. For me, this as-needed basis works. I feel absolutely zero guilt about not making co-sleeping a lifestyle choice but I'm totally supportive of friends and family I know who do it in a healthy way.
So tl;dr: I encourage you to similarly evaluate these philosophies for yourself, and pick and choose as is appropriate for you and your family. Your baby is different from all other babies. Either of you may have a medical reason breastfeeding doesn't work out. Life happens and a decision you make now may no longer make sense for you. Co-sleeping might work for a bit and then you decide it doesn't, or maybe you start without it but you adopt it later on. Maybe you simply feel strongly about not doing it, or not breastfeeding, at all. That's fine. You don't have to 100% subscribe to any parenting doctrine. My sister in law, my best friend, and I all have similarly aged babies and we've all adopted varying levels of AP ideas -- I am the least subscribing of the three -- and I expect all three of our kids are going to grow up as happy, well-adjusted, securely attached children, because when it comes down to it, all of them have parents putting a lot of thought and care into parenting decisions and working hard to do what is best. Fundamentally, I think that's the key.
posted by olinerd at 7:08 PM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
And FWIW, growing up, the most insecure parental relationships I saw among my peers were those who felt their parents somehow resented them. So basically, if you feel you'll resent your child for "forcing" you to do something in particular, like breastfeed beyond the point you feel comfortable doing it, don't pressure yourself into it. It's probably healthier for your attachment not to.
posted by olinerd at 7:16 PM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by olinerd at 7:16 PM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Here to bring more anecdata: what's been puzzling for me, personally, is how attachment-parenting type practices are seen as largely socially acceptable in very young infancy but taboo as you move into late infancy, toddlerhood, and childhood. The data suggests that most breastfeeding parents co-sleep at some point; baby bjorns are socially acceptable for small snugglers, and there's some expectation that women will breastfeed through the newborn period at least. But as my daughter's grown, what's surprised me is how gradual her growth has been. She's fifteen months now, and at 12 months, her nursing needs were fairly indistinguishable from her nursing needs at 10 months or at 8 months. Part of this might be that I've always nursed on demand, and that I work from home so that she's completely regulated her own intake. Our social structure, poor maternity leave, the necessity of pumping in the workplace, the fact that our society is weird about nursing in public especially once babies are older can all impact feeding frequency and therefore supply. But from my own experience, feeding according to her cues, nursing seems superduper important to her still. Like, she loves it, and I couldn't imagine, personally, a sensitive and empathetic way to wean at one year, an age that seems really arbitrarily chosen to me, without it being an emotionally painful thing for her. Her understanding at a year was so, so limited, and her need for that physical experience, if not the nutritional aspect, seemed pretty great.
I hear you on the feminist critiques of attachment parenting, though. Tremendous to me is how much of a dyad, as they say in AP circles, my daughter and I have been. This is inherently limiting in many fundamental ways. I did not expect the physical limitations imposed by early breastfeeding, the strong revulsion I felt to pumping, the urgent need for physical closeness with my own child because if you spend enough time away you leak on freaking everything and it hurts and how that was mixed up in hormones and emotions and how that would alter my view of myself, my partner, and the world. I honestly feel that other AP practices like babywearing and co-sleeping just kind of skim the surface of the physicality of breastfeeding, particularly extended exclusive breastfeeding. Becoming a breastfeeding dyad is a subsuming experience for better or for worse and can have huge career and social impacts.
Still, my instinct is that it's just as antifeminist to demand weaning, for example, as it would be to demand breastfeeding--to force a model of intensive, hormonal, physical mothering on someone who wouldn't want it is clearly unjust. But as hard as it's been, it's also been amazing for me, the kind of experience I wouldn't trade for anything. And my experience is that unless you move in explicitly lactivist circles, eeeeeveryone expects you to wean at a year no matter what is personally desired by you for you and your baby.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:59 PM on April 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
I hear you on the feminist critiques of attachment parenting, though. Tremendous to me is how much of a dyad, as they say in AP circles, my daughter and I have been. This is inherently limiting in many fundamental ways. I did not expect the physical limitations imposed by early breastfeeding, the strong revulsion I felt to pumping, the urgent need for physical closeness with my own child because if you spend enough time away you leak on freaking everything and it hurts and how that was mixed up in hormones and emotions and how that would alter my view of myself, my partner, and the world. I honestly feel that other AP practices like babywearing and co-sleeping just kind of skim the surface of the physicality of breastfeeding, particularly extended exclusive breastfeeding. Becoming a breastfeeding dyad is a subsuming experience for better or for worse and can have huge career and social impacts.
Still, my instinct is that it's just as antifeminist to demand weaning, for example, as it would be to demand breastfeeding--to force a model of intensive, hormonal, physical mothering on someone who wouldn't want it is clearly unjust. But as hard as it's been, it's also been amazing for me, the kind of experience I wouldn't trade for anything. And my experience is that unless you move in explicitly lactivist circles, eeeeeveryone expects you to wean at a year no matter what is personally desired by you for you and your baby.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:59 PM on April 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Here are a couple of studies (Study 1 and Study 2) that indicate that attachment parenting is beneficial.
We practice(d) attachment parenting for sure, but you'll need a big bed. Baby backpacks were a lot of fun, and of course are much safer than strollers in the city when crossing the street for example.
posted by Nevin at 8:36 PM on April 30, 2015
We practice(d) attachment parenting for sure, but you'll need a big bed. Baby backpacks were a lot of fun, and of course are much safer than strollers in the city when crossing the street for example.
posted by Nevin at 8:36 PM on April 30, 2015
The basis of attachment parenting is responsiveness. So the baby wearing thing, for example, is not so much "your baby needs to be carried in a sling all the time to become attached to you" as it is "babies tend to want a lot of physical contact, and carrying the baby in a sling is a way to respond to that need." If you view it as a general principle of responsiveness rather than a list of instructions, there's more of an explicit link to attachment theory. Bowlby's own work talks about responsiveness to infants in hunter-gatherer societies (although his work is somewhat outdated on this now for a few reasons). Looking for connections between responsiveness and attachment will get you more results; here's one:
So if I were you, I'd focus on responsiveness and the benefits of that, rather than any specific practice in particular. A baby who hates being carried in a sling isn't going to magically become more attached to you if you wrestle it into one and carry it around while it yells in protest, but responding to a baby's need for comforting physical contact is one of of the things that can help with building a secure attachment.
That said: obviously attachment parents do tend to use a lot of the same practices, but these tend to (or should at least) arise out of a response to what the baby needs and what works out best for the whole family rather than because Dr Sears Hath Decreed It or whatever. People cosleep, for example, because lots of babies want to sleep very close to a caregiver, and because it's easier to respond to a baby in the night if you don't have to get out of bed to do it.
Anecdotally: before I had my daughter, I thought that parenting practices were mostly decided upon by the adult's preferences, and babies would slot into whatever. Then I had a baby who screamed any time she wasn't being held, wanted to feed all the time, loathed her car seat and Moses basket and pram, and wouldn't sleep alone. And I found that hearing her cry was hugely distressing to me, in a way that heading other people's babies cry never had been. The more mainstream parenting advice was largely useless to me because my baby just wasn't acting like it said she should, and was frequently guilt-trippy with it ("if you don't do XYZ, your child will never sleep/will cling to you forever/won't develop properly", etc). Attachment parenting approaches were a lot more reassuring to me, by taking a much more casual approach - it's fine to just respond to her needs, it's fine to have her sleep in your room so you all get more rest, you aren't making a rod for your own back. So I find it slightly alien to hear attachment parenting presented as the prescriptive and guilt-trippy parenting practice, because for me it was very much the other way around.
posted by Catseye at 12:30 AM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Mothers of securely attached infants had nighttime interactions that were generally more consistent, sensitive and responsive than those of insecurely attached infants. Specifically, in secure dyads, mothers generally picked up and soothed infants when they fussed or cried after an awakening.Honestly it does something of a disservice to attachment parenting to see it as a list of specific must-do practices rather than a general approach (and that includes some parents who identify as following it). The list of principles from API that you linked to doesn't say 'breastfeed until child is X years old', but that you should feed 'with love and respect', responding to the child's hunger and satiation cues, whether that's from a breast or a bottle or a plate.
So if I were you, I'd focus on responsiveness and the benefits of that, rather than any specific practice in particular. A baby who hates being carried in a sling isn't going to magically become more attached to you if you wrestle it into one and carry it around while it yells in protest, but responding to a baby's need for comforting physical contact is one of of the things that can help with building a secure attachment.
That said: obviously attachment parents do tend to use a lot of the same practices, but these tend to (or should at least) arise out of a response to what the baby needs and what works out best for the whole family rather than because Dr Sears Hath Decreed It or whatever. People cosleep, for example, because lots of babies want to sleep very close to a caregiver, and because it's easier to respond to a baby in the night if you don't have to get out of bed to do it.
Anecdotally: before I had my daughter, I thought that parenting practices were mostly decided upon by the adult's preferences, and babies would slot into whatever. Then I had a baby who screamed any time she wasn't being held, wanted to feed all the time, loathed her car seat and Moses basket and pram, and wouldn't sleep alone. And I found that hearing her cry was hugely distressing to me, in a way that heading other people's babies cry never had been. The more mainstream parenting advice was largely useless to me because my baby just wasn't acting like it said she should, and was frequently guilt-trippy with it ("if you don't do XYZ, your child will never sleep/will cling to you forever/won't develop properly", etc). Attachment parenting approaches were a lot more reassuring to me, by taking a much more casual approach - it's fine to just respond to her needs, it's fine to have her sleep in your room so you all get more rest, you aren't making a rod for your own back. So I find it slightly alien to hear attachment parenting presented as the prescriptive and guilt-trippy parenting practice, because for me it was very much the other way around.
posted by Catseye at 12:30 AM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm no scholar on feminism, but it feels counter-intuitive to say that women should stop doing something inherently feminine - breastfeeding our children - in order to be more feminist. The challenge, I think, is for the non-breastfeeding partner (if there is one) to pick up the slack, and for the breastfeeding partner to allow the slack to be picked up. At least in my experience. And it is a challenge! Very much so!
I'm with Catseye in that my kid NEEDED to be held. NEEDED to be attached to Mama. But after about 4 months or so, he hated being in a carrier. I had also gone back to work, so he and I were both pretty harried about the need to reconnect after work, so patience on either of our parts to try a new carrier/position was nonexistent. But co-sleeping was our saviour! I had to go to bed earlier, but side-laying nursing and co-sleeping have made it so that I've only had a handful (really!) of nights where I didn't get enough sleep in the last 21 months. (Plus, night-time baby snuggles are pretty awesome.)
I also agree with PhoBWanKenobi in that a year can feel very arbitrary. In an online breastfeeding support group I belong to, I keep seeing over and over moms with 2, 3 and 4 year olds saying they never expected to breastfeed that long, but it just happens, and they are happy for it. My toddler LOVES his mama milk. LOVES IT. I think it would be entirely cruel to take something that gives him so much happiness and comfort away from him at some arbitrary date. Not seeing many people breastfeed children older than 1 can definitely affect our perspective of it if we've never breastfed a child ourselves. But now, in the midst of it myself, it only feels natural to continue.
posted by jillithd at 6:49 AM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm with Catseye in that my kid NEEDED to be held. NEEDED to be attached to Mama. But after about 4 months or so, he hated being in a carrier. I had also gone back to work, so he and I were both pretty harried about the need to reconnect after work, so patience on either of our parts to try a new carrier/position was nonexistent. But co-sleeping was our saviour! I had to go to bed earlier, but side-laying nursing and co-sleeping have made it so that I've only had a handful (really!) of nights where I didn't get enough sleep in the last 21 months. (Plus, night-time baby snuggles are pretty awesome.)
I also agree with PhoBWanKenobi in that a year can feel very arbitrary. In an online breastfeeding support group I belong to, I keep seeing over and over moms with 2, 3 and 4 year olds saying they never expected to breastfeed that long, but it just happens, and they are happy for it. My toddler LOVES his mama milk. LOVES IT. I think it would be entirely cruel to take something that gives him so much happiness and comfort away from him at some arbitrary date. Not seeing many people breastfeed children older than 1 can definitely affect our perspective of it if we've never breastfed a child ourselves. But now, in the midst of it myself, it only feels natural to continue.
posted by jillithd at 6:49 AM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I agree with Catseye that AP as described by Sears is actually less prescriptive than some practictioners of attachment parenting would have you believe. Sears, for example, is okay with "crying in arms" for families with chronic sleep problems and described how he and his wife used this technique. Personally, I had a baby who hated babywearing until we figured out the back carry around 7 months. She also loved strollers from day 1, go figure. Babies are, in fact, individuals with individual preferences. Some people who parent according to AP principles will make you feel like this isn't the case, though. Follow your instincts for your child.
About Sears specifically, though--he is a conservative Christian, and so I sometimes feel I have to take his advice, particularly about whether it is ideal for all women to stay at home and intensively mother, with a grain of salt. On the other hand, there's James McKenna's research. He's a biological anthropologist at Notre Dame who specifically studies mother/infant sleep in his lab, with a particular focus on the discussion of safe sleep and SIDS reduction. This article is a good introduction to his work.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:03 AM on May 1, 2015
About Sears specifically, though--he is a conservative Christian, and so I sometimes feel I have to take his advice, particularly about whether it is ideal for all women to stay at home and intensively mother, with a grain of salt. On the other hand, there's James McKenna's research. He's a biological anthropologist at Notre Dame who specifically studies mother/infant sleep in his lab, with a particular focus on the discussion of safe sleep and SIDS reduction. This article is a good introduction to his work.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:03 AM on May 1, 2015
if you feel you'll resent your child for "forcing" you to do something in particular, like breastfeed beyond the point you feel comfortable doing it, don't pressure yourself into it. It's probably healthier for your attachment not to.
Yes, this, completely. Pure anecdata from a way-too-tiny sample size to matter: most of the mothers I know who are obsessively concerned with attachment parenting concepts seem to not like being mothers very much and seem not to be very happy people. For them, it seems like AP is a way of diverting anxiety from other areas of their lives into a socially acceptable ideology.
We introduced an occasional bottle at 4 months because my supply couldn't keep up with our baby, and I have to say I felt more attached in some ways then than I had before, because I finally started to get some sleep and was able to enjoy being with her.
posted by luckdragon at 8:05 AM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
Yes, this, completely. Pure anecdata from a way-too-tiny sample size to matter: most of the mothers I know who are obsessively concerned with attachment parenting concepts seem to not like being mothers very much and seem not to be very happy people. For them, it seems like AP is a way of diverting anxiety from other areas of their lives into a socially acceptable ideology.
We introduced an occasional bottle at 4 months because my supply couldn't keep up with our baby, and I have to say I felt more attached in some ways then than I had before, because I finally started to get some sleep and was able to enjoy being with her.
posted by luckdragon at 8:05 AM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
This is the best place for discussion and analysis of attachment parenting research: http://evolutionaryparenting.com/
Warning: the blog author is often confrontational and brash. Prepare to have your values challenged, WHATEVER your values are. I do not always agree with her discussion of the literature, but from a scientific standpoint (I am also a scientist), her work is very solid.
There is a world of difference between determining whether attachment parenting techniques result in securely attached children *in general*, and whether attachment parenting techniques will result in a particular child being securely attached.
On the one hand, this is obvious. On the other hand, I think that confusion about this critical difference is responsible for a great deal of parenting strife. Just because research shows that ON AVERAGE children who are carried close to a parent cry less and sleep more (which it does), does not mean that if your child cries a lot and doesn't sleep much, you can definitely reduce crying and increase sleep by babywearing more. It also does not mean that cosleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, or any other attachment parenting practices are right for your child in any given time during development. Acknowledging this is not a refutation of attachment parenting principles!! When parents who aspire to attachment parenting "ideals" come up against a problem which is either a) caused by or b) not being helped by attachment parenting principles (both are possible), they OFTEN feel guilty or confused, and can have a lot of trouble figuring out the "right thing to do", given that they prescribed "right thing to do" (sanctioned by research, etc.) was not working*. This is very stressful, and I think a lot of stress is due to the fact that people confuse practices that work ON AVERAGE with practices that can be applied like specific medicine to specific children and their individual challenges.
*Not knowing what to do is, like, the essence of parenting, but feeling guilty that what you believed was The Answer isn't working is even more stressful, you know?
I have certainly had my lessons in this as a parent - after 8 months of responding within seconds to every single cry that my son made all night long (co-sleeping most of that time), he had not learned that sleep was safe or pleasant (cried the minute he figured out we were walking towards the bedroom), he certainly hadn't learned how to go to sleep or stay asleep (up every 40 minutes all night), and even worse, he certainly wasn't enjoying the all-night nursing that was making me hallucinate with exhaustion. I remember being SHOCKED when I saw that Dr. Sears talked about letting a child cry with a parent present as they learned to sleep without constant nursing. When I decided to put my son down after nursing whether he was fully asleep or not, he did cry, for a little while, and after a few not-even-all-that-rocky days he left his horrible, fractured sleep behind and has slept well (with normal ups and downs) ever since - and we never stopped nursing him to sleep. It was beyond stressful to sleep so poorly for so long, and it was very hard to make the decision to take action, but looking back, the whole experience taught me to have confidence in my own understanding of what my son truly needed.
Basically, I think that all the reading I had done about attachment parenting had scared me into thinking that my natural instincts would be too lazy, too mean, and too callous for my child. If I didn't try extra hard to be a good attachment parent, I wouldn't be kind enough, or sensitive enough. On the one hand, I'm really glad I read everything I read. I have learned a lot and I don't regret it. On the other hand, it took (and frankly continues to take) a lot of stress and self-criticism before I realized that I actually AM kind and sensitive enough to be a good parent to my son, and that my careful observation of him, and my thoughtful responses to the issues that I understand better than anyone, are just what he needs. Not some cookie-cutter mother following every attachment parenting rule in the book. Like several others commenting here, I have "followed my nose" with various attachment parenting principles and it has worked out very well for us. My son now sleeps through the night in his own bed most of the time, but if he wakes up he comes into bed with me. He's 16 months and still nursing and I can't imagine forcing him to wean - it would be SO upsetting for him, and I would gain almost nothing - in fact I would lose a really valuable parenting tool that is working great for both of us. He's a very independent child by temperament (same as I was), but clearly well-attached. He plays on his own a lot, but sometimes demands to be carried, which is fine with me. We are city-dwellers and have relied on babywearing since day 1, and I even commute across city on public transit while babywearing every day; it's been a huge success and source of ease and closeness for our whole family. My son has never been punished and I have never, ever raised my voice, but I do have quite high expectations for his behavior.
posted by Cygnet at 12:38 PM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Warning: the blog author is often confrontational and brash. Prepare to have your values challenged, WHATEVER your values are. I do not always agree with her discussion of the literature, but from a scientific standpoint (I am also a scientist), her work is very solid.
There is a world of difference between determining whether attachment parenting techniques result in securely attached children *in general*, and whether attachment parenting techniques will result in a particular child being securely attached.
On the one hand, this is obvious. On the other hand, I think that confusion about this critical difference is responsible for a great deal of parenting strife. Just because research shows that ON AVERAGE children who are carried close to a parent cry less and sleep more (which it does), does not mean that if your child cries a lot and doesn't sleep much, you can definitely reduce crying and increase sleep by babywearing more. It also does not mean that cosleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, or any other attachment parenting practices are right for your child in any given time during development. Acknowledging this is not a refutation of attachment parenting principles!! When parents who aspire to attachment parenting "ideals" come up against a problem which is either a) caused by or b) not being helped by attachment parenting principles (both are possible), they OFTEN feel guilty or confused, and can have a lot of trouble figuring out the "right thing to do", given that they prescribed "right thing to do" (sanctioned by research, etc.) was not working*. This is very stressful, and I think a lot of stress is due to the fact that people confuse practices that work ON AVERAGE with practices that can be applied like specific medicine to specific children and their individual challenges.
*Not knowing what to do is, like, the essence of parenting, but feeling guilty that what you believed was The Answer isn't working is even more stressful, you know?
I have certainly had my lessons in this as a parent - after 8 months of responding within seconds to every single cry that my son made all night long (co-sleeping most of that time), he had not learned that sleep was safe or pleasant (cried the minute he figured out we were walking towards the bedroom), he certainly hadn't learned how to go to sleep or stay asleep (up every 40 minutes all night), and even worse, he certainly wasn't enjoying the all-night nursing that was making me hallucinate with exhaustion. I remember being SHOCKED when I saw that Dr. Sears talked about letting a child cry with a parent present as they learned to sleep without constant nursing. When I decided to put my son down after nursing whether he was fully asleep or not, he did cry, for a little while, and after a few not-even-all-that-rocky days he left his horrible, fractured sleep behind and has slept well (with normal ups and downs) ever since - and we never stopped nursing him to sleep. It was beyond stressful to sleep so poorly for so long, and it was very hard to make the decision to take action, but looking back, the whole experience taught me to have confidence in my own understanding of what my son truly needed.
Basically, I think that all the reading I had done about attachment parenting had scared me into thinking that my natural instincts would be too lazy, too mean, and too callous for my child. If I didn't try extra hard to be a good attachment parent, I wouldn't be kind enough, or sensitive enough. On the one hand, I'm really glad I read everything I read. I have learned a lot and I don't regret it. On the other hand, it took (and frankly continues to take) a lot of stress and self-criticism before I realized that I actually AM kind and sensitive enough to be a good parent to my son, and that my careful observation of him, and my thoughtful responses to the issues that I understand better than anyone, are just what he needs. Not some cookie-cutter mother following every attachment parenting rule in the book. Like several others commenting here, I have "followed my nose" with various attachment parenting principles and it has worked out very well for us. My son now sleeps through the night in his own bed most of the time, but if he wakes up he comes into bed with me. He's 16 months and still nursing and I can't imagine forcing him to wean - it would be SO upsetting for him, and I would gain almost nothing - in fact I would lose a really valuable parenting tool that is working great for both of us. He's a very independent child by temperament (same as I was), but clearly well-attached. He plays on his own a lot, but sometimes demands to be carried, which is fine with me. We are city-dwellers and have relied on babywearing since day 1, and I even commute across city on public transit while babywearing every day; it's been a huge success and source of ease and closeness for our whole family. My son has never been punished and I have never, ever raised my voice, but I do have quite high expectations for his behavior.
posted by Cygnet at 12:38 PM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks everyone this discussion has been very helpful & I feel a lot clearer. I'm seeing that the cosleeping/wearing/nursing are ways to help the bond with your child, but not the bond itself. Not one is a make-or-break parameter. I don't know how I didn't see it that way before but I just didn't.
By the way, I didn't mean to offend anyone with the comment that AP seems kinda anti-feminist; some blogs seem to take those principles (which aren't feminist or not; who doesn't want to bond with their kid, duh) and then feminine-mystique the heck out of them. You should be graciously fulfilled nursing your precious baby to sleep at 2 years old, and putting their sense of well-being above your own needs and your other relationships, else what kind of mother are you? That kind of thing.
posted by serenity soonish at 3:39 PM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
By the way, I didn't mean to offend anyone with the comment that AP seems kinda anti-feminist; some blogs seem to take those principles (which aren't feminist or not; who doesn't want to bond with their kid, duh) and then feminine-mystique the heck out of them. You should be graciously fulfilled nursing your precious baby to sleep at 2 years old, and putting their sense of well-being above your own needs and your other relationships, else what kind of mother are you? That kind of thing.
posted by serenity soonish at 3:39 PM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: And just in case anyone reads this thread later on, someone memailed me about the current "gold standard" of attachment intervention which seems to be the circle of security which teaches parents how to interact with their child in a way that fosters secure attachment - how to read their cues, understand their boundaries and so on. It is being used in university research with clinically effective outcomes. I found a free 8-week program in my area just by searching "circle of security" + city name.
posted by serenity soonish at 6:50 AM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by serenity soonish at 6:50 AM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
But I wanted to address this part of your question: I just wasn't expecting to have to sleep with my baby every night until 6 months or breastfeed after 1 year.
Parenting isn't about doing everything right, or even about doing one thing perfectly. Babies, and just as importantly, moms, have different needs and personalities. Does co-sleeping increase attachment? I think that's quite likely. Is it the only thing, or even the most important or even likely thing to increase attachment? Not necessarily. Same with breastfeeding past 1 year. Neither are absolute requirements (or guarantees) of increased attachment.
I personally think your instincts are spot on about the communication between baby and parent. It's the engagement that is key, not the particular mechanics of how that happens. Please don't feel like you have to be perfect, because there's no such thing and the definition of perfect will change again anyway. I have complete faith that you will find what works for you and your baby.
Anecdata: 3 kids, co-slept on occasion with 1, breastfed all until 6 months, showered kids with love, attention and engagement. All 3 are appropriately attached (1 despite some spectrum tendencies) and we have an extremely close-knit family.
posted by widdershins at 1:28 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]