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!

[YouTheCat]

Exactly Cory.

[Sirzy]

Unless someone is harming/neglecting a child (and by that I don't mean daring to give a bottle of formula or leaving a baby to cry for a couple of minutes!) then does anyone really care how others parent? Everyone does what works for their family at that time. If something different works for a different family then great good luck to them!

[oohdaddypig]

I think if anything the general trend is put everyone first ahead of the mother. I'm not saying that from any particular parenting approach but more from what I see in the media/press as everything being child centred. Any needs or requirements of the mother seem to be seen as irrelevant or showing selfishness.

So we have mums developing PND through guilt at not being able to breast feed, expected never to let a child cry (impossible with multiple children) etc etc

I'm not sure this is going to do our kids much good either tbh.

I wonder if the "benign neglect" of yore might be better all round.

I wrestle with this most days when parenting.

[YouTheCat]

The thing is are are a few quite bonkers people on here and in RL that would have told Cory that she must forego her own medical needs and bf at all costs because not to do so is harmful to baby

It is refreshing that the general consensus on this thread is do what is right for your family though - whether it has a label or not.

[K8Middleton]

There are bonkers people who identify with all schools of parenting.

Can we just stop with the "I have a friend who who was an attachment parent so that mean attachment parents are X, Y, Z"? It just makes you sound small minded and I'm sure you're not really. Just very self-assured in your choices!

Actually don't stop. We'd have to switch off Mumsnet if it was all reasoned, evidenced based debate

[K8Middleton]

That post was only to those making sweeping generalisations based on anecdotal evidence. Just so I'm clear :)

[FryOneFatManic]

I think I'm probably like most parents. If my parenting style were analysed, it would be a little from this style, a little from that, etc.

I chose individual options that suited the DCs and me. I don't want a label, other than "parent", that's all.

[MrsMook]

First rule of nappy group: we don't talk about nappy group. There's loads of them. Some are more focused on others, but on nappy talk, different brands, fit, strip washing, special offers, pretty ones... Other parenting stuff comes up in the one I'm in.


I think the NSPCC advert has a lot to answer for- the one where a folorn little Johnny peers over the cot having given up crying because no body ever comes. I'm sure that's guilt tripped a lot of parents over reasonable and normal amounts of crying. You know your own baby's cries. Sometimes they need attention more urgently than other times. Some people mistake any crying for neglect. It obviously isn't or all younger siblings woud be psycologically disturbed from a parent dealing with an older sibling first. Everyone's comfort zone is different, but there is a small minority that thinks any crying is neglect, and that undermines a lot of healthy parenting.

[Catmint]

Where do the needs of the parent and wider society fit in?

Genuine question, if the child is taught that their needs are the most important thing in the whole world, how do they manage in situations where everyone's needs have to be compromised for reasons of practicality? Eg in schools, healthcare, public transport, many areas of life. Doesn't it come as a huge and damaging shock?

I only know one AP child, and it would appear that the above is the case for them... But perhaps the parents didn't do it right?

[Hullygully]

I have a friend who eats her own baby's poop so all attachment parents are bonkers

[YouTheCat]

Hully! Wtf?

[mrsjay]

have a friend who eats her own baby's poop so all attachment parents are bonker

WHAT YOU CANT LEAVE IT AT THAT

[ThisReallyIsNotSPNopeNotAtAll]

Hulky WTAF?! That's fucking mental!

[Hullygully]

no no, you nanas, that was for K8 ^^

[TarkaTheOtter]

People will believe anything about those crazeeee AP parents.

[ICBINEG]

ohh just beautiful there hully...

[Hullygully]

I should have kept it going

DAMN THAT MISSED OPPORTUNITY

[mrsjay]

ocht I would have loved a poop munching story while I ate my hand sandwhich

[YouTheCat]

You're eating your hand!

Is that an AP thing too?

[Hullygully]

hands and poop dear dear dear

[mrsjay]

Oh god sake Ham I am not eating my hand that would just be weird

[YouTheCat]

And this is why I didn't AP. I didn't like the poop eating and self-cannibalisation.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Yeh, the placenta was OK - quite tasty, but the poop was just nasty

[squalorvictoria]

I can't help but find attachment parents smug.

I find the terminology so irritating. "Attachment" this, "natural" that, "gentle" the other.

It's so unyielding isn't it? As if parenting is that simple.

Yeah yeah, each to their own, and live and let live, but the smell of burning martyr that permeates when an AP I know complains about being so tired because their child breastfed all night long. Their three and a half year old child. If your child doesn't eat all day and breast feeds all night to make up for it, then y'know, make some changes?

[cory]

Hully, you have now brought back the memory of the time dd at the dinner table shoved her hand into her pants and then into her mouth and then pronounced solemnly that "it doesn't taste very nice".

I just had lunch with dd. We talked about the theatre and her prom and her plans for the future. It was lovely- but I want those silly and disgusting and funny times back!