Continuum Concept

[roseability]

Anyone brought their baby up following the continuum concept i.e. co sleeping, extended breastfeeding, baby wearing etc
How was it? Was your baby happy/content?
I'm interested to know if this can actually work for people

[Again]

My ds is only 10 months and we didn't do the full in arms thing anyway, so can't really comment on how he will turn out (so to speak!).

We mostly carried him, either in arms or in a wrap and still do. I bf on demand, but will be going back to work soon for 3 days a week, so may have to intro some bottles and obviously can't be on demand while I'm not there. We co-sleep now but didn't from 6 weeks to 6 months because I found it difficult to sleep and also I was worried about SIDS, but now realise that co-sleeping can actually help prevent it and next time around I would definitely co-sleep.

He started crawling at 7.5 months and pulling himself up a week later. Is now climbing, but not yet walking though seems keen. We did baby led weaning and he eats huge amounts of food! He is an extremely happy baby except when on long car journeys (is only happy for about 15 minutes in car seat). The other issue is that he wakes through-out the night for feeds, which started at about 6 months and only goes to sleep bfing or when being walked.

I just thought that I'd say that it would be good to have a board specifically for those interested in discussing attachment parenting. I've mentioned it before and seemingly it's up for discussion.

Would be very interested to hear of parents who have older children who were attachment parented

[Janni]

tried with DS1. Simply wasn't strong enough to do baby-wearing all the time, used a pram a lot from 4 weeks. Breastfed till 20 months - would have done longer, but developed bad thrush. The co-sleeping was partly nice and partly a pain - didn't do it with next baby, but had him in the room for about a year.

You will drive yourself nuts trying to implement it unless you live in a nice rural community with lots of pairs of hands to hand the baby to.

[Janni]

My older children are 11 and 8 and I would say trust yourself and your instincts more than any manual.

[CristinaTheAstonishing]

Don't forget that the CC was not written as a "baby manual", just observations made by an at the time untrained anthropologist. It's an interesting book but not a manual for "attachment parenting".

[mumnanny1]

My son is 2.9 and we have basically parented in that way, more by accident than design though! I breast fed until he was 1( not that long, but longer than the majority I would guess). We have always co-slept and still do. This is where I now have a problem. I would now like to put an end to this, but he is not keen on his cot bed. Also, until about 6 months ago he wanted to be picked up ALOT. Very tiring! So I would say, think long and hard before going down this route. Having said that, I went with my instinct and don't think I'd have been happier parenting in any other way. I'm sure we will sort out the co-sleeping, eventually!