To find attachment parents pretty blooming judgemental and smug

[rowtunda]

Or is it just me.

Raise your childhowever you want, different mums & different babies etc etc but at the moment I seem to be getting exponents of gentle parenting, attachment parenting, co sleeping, baby wearing ramming it all down my throat, sharing links on facebook to articles about how much they pity parents who use CC, etc etc

Mumsnet also seems to also be full of people who recommend these parenting styles i.e. sitting in a drak room for hours holding your
toddlers hand in a darkened room until they fall sleep, condemning people who use sleep training methods, want an evening sans child etc etc.

Maybe its just all the mums I know who are doing this 'parenting style' are a teensy but self righteous. I think it really annoys me because of the insinuation that I have failed my child (not responding to their needs/breaking the maternal bond etc) by
doing it another way.

I am prepared to be flamed - but does anyone else out their feel the same.

Fine if you want to be an attachment parent but please stop preaching on about it like you have reinvented the wheel!

I'm an AP parent. I got thoroughly sick of comments involving "when are you stopping feeding" "cosleeping is bad" "that child should be in a pushchair" and other gems. It works both ways
I tell people when they ask for my opinion. Mainstream parenting is so reinforced that most people are relieved when they can finally admit that they sleep with eir baby etc. and not have the "rod for your own back" comments

Children don't always come first though. My son is partof a family. The majority of the time his needs come first, but not alwalways.

That right there is the issue I have with AP folk. That byaddressing own needs and understanding that just because you bebecbecame a parent, you didn't stop being a person, you are being selfish and not putting your own child first. Most of us weigh up the benefits of things to the baby vs the cost to our own mental health and wellbeing. I see posts all the time saying things like Oh my baby is two and still wakes up every hour and a half for a feed, I'm so exhausted I can barely function. And some ap type with inevitability reply with something along the lines of well they're only little for a short time and hugs mama, hang on in the for another year, bubba comes first. It gives me the rage.

Embrace, so ap parents are 'putting their children's needs first' and those who cc put baby in a cot and bottle feed is always for the parents benefit.

Judge and smug much!!!!

That's the attitude that makes people want to biff you in the head with a large and heavy parenting manual.

Co sleeping, breast feeding and not minding if you never sleep does not make you any better parent.

It's just your way to suit you. Yes YOU unless your baby had a conversation with you and expressed a preference.

Embrace - you obviously don't realise it but you are the epitome of a smug, judgemental attachment parent!!

I always put my babies needs first, thank you very much

New to a city I accidently got involved in an attachment parents group. Labelled AP I thought it was an Area playgroup.
It was fairly casual , kids played , babies cooed , mothers did lots of what I thought harmless hippy chat. Dr Sears mentioned a few times . Thought he was the local doctor.. I'd never heard of AP before.
A fews weeks in , the leader cornered me as a few mothers were concerned I wasn't fully on board because I left the twins in their maxi cosi feeding "themselves " with bottles formula .

I had 4 under 3 , no time for methods it was pure survival.

I feel like the things I do that ate typical of an ap parent like co-sleep, ebf, feed/cuddle to sleep are for my benefit rather than ds's.

I think he would be just as happy in his own room with formula I just don't want to be getting up and traipsing across the house making up bottles of formula when helliterally helps him self to milk in the night so I don't have to wake up.

I am a little in awe of those parents who have sorted out a routine and who have self settling babies and who manage to sterilize bottles and remember the bottle and formula every time they leave the house!

Exactly 4x4, if I hadn't tried CC when my twins were 6months I would have ended up even more sleep deprived and probably done something stupid or dangerous in my haze. 3 hours of broken sleep a night and no chance to catch up during the day (mine napped for 30 minutes during the day but at different times - the swines) was making me ill. If I had got ill what would have happened? I don't think sacrificing my health for my kids would have been best for them.

I'm an a accidental attachment parent (ie my babies like to sleep on with me and I find a sling easier than a buggy for getting around with no car) so I may have the terminology wrong, but "bubba comes first" being the basis of attachment parenting is bollocks for many people. It is also bollocks that we're all putting the child first at the expense of others. I will concede Embracethemuffintop is doing her best to enforce the smug and judgemental stereotype!

I, and people I know, are just doing what works for us. I like my sleep - my first baby would not sleep in a cot but slept like a dream next to me. Dc2 has slept with me from birth and it has worked for us. We don't have a car so a sling is handy because some getting the pushchair on a bus or down a muddy track is difficult. I mixed fed my first, but breastfeeding has worked well for my second thankfully.

I am balancing all our needs and we're happy. I have friends who cannot sleep with their baby in the room. So long as you're all sleeping who cares?

So long as you're all fed and are supported in your choices, who cares? I might be a bit annoyed if you won't come to a special lunch because your routine says baby must eat and nap at separate times but it's not the end of the world. You might be more likely to come out for a drink from 8pm once baby's down!

Who cares whether you wear a sling or push a buggy? I care if you get my ankles with it or stand blocking the pavement or corner. I care if you won't fold it for a wheelchair on the bus. But I don't care otherwise!

So I care if you are rude or inconsiderate and if you drone on about your way being best, better or correct I will probably drop you... but I otherwise do not give a shit.

Militant types exist everywhere. Don't fall for the idea that what someone else has chosen reflects in any way on your own choices. See wohm/SAHM, breast vs bottle bunfights of yore. Same old, same old. Fear of the other and anxiety about having our choices undermined.

It can be good though to find a philosophy of parenting that you find encouraging ... so to realise that extended breast-feeding and co-sleeping and avoidment of punishment might all be related, and the sort of approach to raising their children that others are taking as well.

I think on the whole it's good to talk about parenting with others, and to be a bit reflective about what will be best for you and your DCs

We could argue about this until the cows come home but nobody would ever convince me, having tried it, that CC is for the benefit of the child.

I am not big AP supporter. I didn't co-sleep much (usually by accident rather than design), I never had a sling nor did I do BLW but CC made my child miserable as sin and me too. I think suggesting CC as being for anything other than the parent's benefit is an argument too far in the other direction. It is a method out of the Victorian 'spare the rod, spoil the child' school of parenting ime.

Anything else you can be guided by the child, some like cots, some don't, some like being held, some don't - they make their preferences felt and you go with it or don't. No child is ever going to chose CC. It is never about putting your baby first, ever and I can't bear the smugness of the people who have done it and got their baby to sleep through permanently, which is more luck than anything, and think that everybody else is deluded/selfish/just plain wrong for not doing it.

AP does make you quite selfish though.
It's completely impossible to spend any quality time with my AP friend these days. If I go over in the evenings she is up and down to her DC's bed as child won't go to sleep without her lying next to him, and also likes to be b/f to sleep.

In my last visit I got there at 8, left at 11 and I think saw my friend for about 20 minutes of the time.

She is a very longstanding friend or I would be entirely fed by now, because it is the same every time I see her (i.e. this wasn't a one off bad night). Her DS is 3.5 and she plans to continue this "as long as he wants".

How can you be a 'big ap supporter'!!!! What suits one baby doesn't suit others.. It means exactly that YOU are a big supporter and your baby has to fit into YOUR philosophy.

4x4 that's hilarious.

YouTheCat, agree cc saved my sanity and gave me a well rested happy baby.

BigBertha, guess you had great sleepers. Or perhaps yes all us dreadful cc mothers do it to torture our babies and for no other reason.

Do be sensible.

I was an accidental AP. (BF to 2 years, sling use for handiness and because I was freaky about having them out of sight, cloth bums because DS1 was allergic to nappies FFS)

I find people on all sides of the debate see your personal decisions as an attack on theirs. It's odd behaviour.

The very very extreme people (like the friend who claimed, loudly, that FF babies "stink," or the other friend who claimed that people who BF got some kind of weird perverted kick out of it) are irritating, but I think they're just justifying their choices that they somehow aren't secure about.

My children are happy and mostly healthy, whether that's because of or in spite of my parenting I don't know!

Oh, I've never tried CC, it wasn't for us. I don't sleep through the night, so I don't expect my kids to. It does seem alien to me, hence not trying it, but I do get that it works for some. CIO is different, I do believe that's a Bad Thing.

On the contrary, embrace, the research conducted by John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth and later Mary Main on attachment patterns in infancy is anything but flawed - that's why it has become so influential that it has begun to seep into pop psychology. That research - particularly the later work of Mary Main and onward - shows amongst other things that the parent's own attachment style predicts the child's in 75% of cases. This has been replicated by many investigators around the world.

If you want references, try van Ijzendorn, M. H. (1995): Adult attachment representations, parental responsiveness, and infant attachment: A meta-analysis on the predictive validity of the Adult Attachment Interview in Psychological Bulletin, 117, 387-403.

In contrast, despite a lot of searching I have yet to find a decent longitudinal study that shows a positive correlation between an 'attachment' parenting philosophy and a secure attachment style, once you have controlled for the the parent's attachment style. (If you know of such a study please let me know - I'm very happy to update my understanding with new valid research). Hence my point, which is that simply applying a parenting philosophy is a waste of time, as if the aim is secure babies it will probably be more effective to address the parent's attachment experiences and patterns than to apply a parenting philosophy to the child.

I also think it's worth saying that the whole attachment thing gets blown somewhat out of proportion by anxious parents IMO. In my professional life I frequently see clients with very disturbed early attachment issues that are impacting severely on their adult ability to cope. And in no case has that ever been as a result of their parents having used a forward-facing pram, stopping breastfeeding at six months or even doing CC: it's been as a result of sexual abuse, violence, abandonment and other real attachment issues. Normal, concerned, loving parents will in most cases be absolutely fine regardless of whether or not they use AP or some other method. The whole 'parenting style' debate is fought over stuff which in 99% of cases is pretty trivial in the long term, when seen from a clinician's point of view.

OTheHugeManatee,

Absolutely agree with your post.

I'm mildly "alternative" on balance. I just do what suits my family. I find baby wearing practical (means I've escaped the dreaded double buggy as I can swap my 2 yr old and new baby around). I like the prettiness and bin-space saving properties of reusable nappies. I like not having to faff with bottles and formula. I also like my own space in bed. DS 1 gets overwhelmed by fuss when he's tired, so letting him cry is most effective for him. I don't follow any particular philosophies, and I adapt to what the needs are of the situation (e.g. Co-sleeping if child is poorly and needs more comfort than normal)

I borrow a crappy parenting magazine frm the library (because it's a free, easy read) and like the Emma's Diary type parenting propaganda, they still seem to follow a tight path of sleep solutions, complicated stages of puree, best travel systems... and don't seem to cover the full range of parenting options. I think that's partly why the internet is such a haven for alternative type parenting, as that's where the information is. Also if you're prepared to do one thing differently, you're probably open to doing something else. I'm a member of a nappy group on FB, and it happens that the general balance is towards slings, BLW etc. Also seeing one person trying something, creates interest in it, so the interest grows. As long as there's respect for varying approaches, it's all fine and dandy.

Terminology doesn't help. (I particularly hate "Gentle Parenting". Mind you, if I was always "gentle" I'd never get any thing done around a full rage tantruming toddler). Being fundamental about anything be it religion, politics, parenting styles etc. is never pretty.

I bf for 21 months
I wore DS in a carrier for many hours a day until he was 15 months
I never let him cry longer than a minute
I don't let him watch TV

I sleep-trained at fifteen months (gradual retreat--amazing!)
I co-slept for two months, but couldn't stand the lack of sleep I was getting
I put him in his own room at six months
I did a mixture of spoon-feeding and baby-led weaning (went meal to meal, and at 22 months, he's a fantastic eater)

In short, at every step of the way, I did what worked best for our family, mostly putting my son first, but also taking into account my needs and my husband's. Surely everyone does this? I think it would be so exhausting to slavishly subscribe to one philosophy.

I know someone who practices AP. She isn't smug and she probably doesn't even realise that her style of parenting has a name. But my God does it look exhausting. Sometimes I wish I could say to her that putting herself first once in a while won't damage her child and that it is natural for a child to cry.

That's all very well, Bertha. I'm not saying CC is right for everyone but there is no way I could have done another 6 months on 3 hours of broken sleep. I had no support and so no break ever. I couldn't co-sleep with twins on account of their father being a heavy drinker and smoker.

So should I have put the babies in bed with me and their father? I think that would have been a massive mistake and would have put them at risk.

But in the end, my kids have survived my poor (according to some) parenting and are now adults. People should do what is right for them and their circumstances.

If I hadn't done cc like YouTheCat I would have ended up crashing my car or causing an accident.

I can't describe the utter joy of finally getting a full nights sleep. Best thing I ever did and that baby is now a strapping 23 year old graduate.

Suspect I shall be flamed for asking this but if there is a nappy group on Facebook - what the heck do you all discuss?! This intrigues me! I mean, how much chat about nappies can you actually have?!

I don't really get Facebook to begin with so I've probably not got much hope with a Facebook club that wants to talk about nappies....

"It is saying put the child's needs first whatever they may be."

So what if you have more than one child?

Surely there will be times when you cannot put both children's needs first, where something has to give?

And what if child's needs depend on parent staying in reasonable health?

My GP persuaded me to stop bf when ds was a few months old, so that I could take medicine that made my risk of dropping dead or or dropping him substantially lower. In the end I did see her point that ds' first need was ME.