To find natural/attachment parents extremely judgementaland intolerant of other parenting choices?

[firtreepants]

I used to consider myself an attachment parent i.e i breastfed my now 4yo until he was 3.5, i cosleep and babywore. Over the past four years i have joined a few AP groups on facebook and the majority of my friends are AP. I am however, getting increasingly frustrated with the amount of judging that goes on in these groups and in my circle of friends. Judgement of formula feeding, of putting baby in own room to sleep, of using buggies, of controlled crying, of using purees rather than doing baby led weaning. The list goes on. As a result i am now gravitating to my more mainstream friends who, quite frankly, are much more pleasant and just nicer to be around. We are all on our own parenting journey aren't we. Who am i to say that you are doing it wrong? Anyone else found this? Aibu?

I am not really a fan of any parenting labels. This is because most people I know just practice "getting through the day and night without fucking things up terribly (and sometimes fucking them up a bit)" rather than a more sophisticated approach.

I do co-sleep and I am breastfeeding DS2 who is 13mo now. It still matters to him so I still feed him on demand in the night or day whenever I'm there. I did the same for DS1.

DS1 didn't like buggies so was in a sling until he walked; the idea of a buggy horrified him. Yet DS2 loves his little pushchair seat to watch the world go by and shouts "broom broom" like he is driving a car as we go.

I work full time and have done since DS1 was 9mo and DS2 was 6mo. My children go to a nursery.

So I don't think I fit in anywhere with the labels....I pick and choose the different elements of parenting that suit my children and my own life.

We are all loved and loving and I can live with that. I assume other people do the same for their children, in whatever form that takes.

I had no idea there were so many "styles" of parenting before I had my children!

The idea that sticking rigidly to a proscribed "method" of parenting makes some people feel superior and judgemental is a bit odd.

The impression it gives me is of someone who would possibly struggle to cope if left to use their own wits. Why that is a desirable trait I have no idea

I guess we fall into the category of AP as DD is still breastfed, cosleeping, worn etc. After doing my dissertation on Bowlby's attachment theory it came naturally to me, didn't join any groups or subscribe to a particular ideal.

I never attack others parenting choices as I believe that sometimes getting through the day is good enough! I don't agree with CIO but I would never challenge a parent who was doing it. However my parenting choices are constantly being attacked. People are telling me that I'm making DD clingy by cosleeping, saying its " wrong" that DD is still BF (she's 13mo for goodness sake!) telling me that I'm reckless and DD will choke & die if I do BLW. Is that ok then?

This shit gets posted at least once a month on AIBU. Why? It's frankly bloody weird.

Inevitably the thread then fills up with judgemental arses rushing in to claim that their SIL is an attachment parent and blah blah,' made up story about how badly disciplined Ocelot and Thumbelina are.'

Then someone else comes along to say that their NCT mate is an AP and her kids are so repressed and only allowed to eat seaweed and yaks milk and 'I'd much rather have my rough and tumble lot'

And the whole thread is full of people being massively judgemental arseholes under cover of 'i'd never judge anyone else's parenting choices'

I mean really do we have a quota to full or something? Don't you people have MILs to moan about?

Maybe people just get sick of being told they're a crap parent all the time no matter how hard they try to do the right thing. Personally I get sick of trying to work out what the right thing is since it so often seems to involve doing 2 completely opposite things at the same time.

I was an AP 14 years ago and joined one of the early AP sites.

Then I got hugely condemned/bullied because I had dd1 vaccinated.

I continued bf/co-sleeping/sling etc.

But when ds was born I found mumsnet, which didn't judge! I reckoned that having my children vaccinated against tetanus/pertussis/diphtheria (a great-aunt of mine died of diptherial memengitis before I was born) was a good thing!

I think it's not just APers. For example look how judgemental of SAHMs certain mumsnetters are. I think some people are not happy unless they are having a good old sneer regardless of what they do.

I just don't tell anyone my parenting methods. It's nobody else's business and I don't feel the need to talk about it. Why does anyone?

However, I was at a lunch yesterday when the mother of a 4 week old said she left him to cry a lot because she wasn't one of these "martyr mummies."

I did think, "You do what you please but why do you feel the need to knock others at the same time?"

There are a'holes in all walks of life.

Most parents just muddle through.

I had a very "high-needs" baby (ie wouldn't be put down for any length of time, hated her carseat, hated being held by most people apart from a few chosen few, never slept anywhere apart from on or right next to us... you get the picture). She had silent reflux, I was a sleep-deprived mess for the first 18 months. Cosleeping, using a sling (or "strapping that poor baby to herself all the time" to use the SIL's words) and BF on demand were the only things that got me (just about) through it all.

AP and "happy hippie" type internet forums were my safe haven, where I found others who - quite rightly - told me that it was ok to follow my instincts, that I didn't need to just "put her on the bottle" and leave her to cry, that I wasn't spoiling my baby or making a rod for my own back! The venom directed at me from certain other women in the family (who did/do things very differently) was and still is quite astonishing.

It would never occur to me to criticise other people though.

SleepRefugee - our babies sound like they could be identical twins! Good to hear things improved at 18 months. Mine is 10 months and so we're still in the thick of it, though it's definitely getting easier.

But they fail to accept they evidence of their own eyes that other people who are not following their "route" or maybe any theory still manage to rear happy confident secure children.

There's nearly always judgy a vibe ime.

Good post Miaow

Tut tut Derek, it's not finger foods.

Somebody on another thread told me I was uneducated if I thought that blw and finger foods were the same. There is a completely different ethos to blw apparently. Finger foods are just NOT THE SAME THING!!

I had one of those SleepRefugee! Better by 12 months though peppinagiro, and suddenly started sleeping all night in his own cot, so hang in there!

I can see both sides really, as I got a lot of judgement from older female relatives for letting my tiny baby sleep on me etc, which was purely so I could get some sleep myself, and for sharing a room with him until he was over one.
I didn't really know any other parents of babies until ds was 2, and then I met some who would fit the AP description, although I didn't have MN then, so in my head they were just "hippies"

One woman I knew did the whole "all the children in the bed, no cot, no playpen, sling at all times, baby led weaning (and yes, I called it finger food!) thing. She sure was knackered and grumpy, and never actually seemed to have the energy to have any fun with her child.
She would giver her 18 month old a spoon to eat yogurt with, and leave him to get on with it, meaning that all the yogurt would end up on him and around him, rather than in his mouth, and then sigh over the mess, and I did think that was odd, as if spoon feeding a baby was really THAT terrible!
I was soo naive about the world of "parenting" though! I had no idea at all that play pens were considered bad by anyone, or that owning a hand blender could in some way discourage my son from having a good relationship with food.
Interestingly (and by that I mean smugly) ds eats everything, and the baby led weaned child STILL can't use cutlery at 7...

I think when we make rules for ourselves as parents, we are going to run into trouble, as you do have to adjust your thinking according to the actual child you have.
And I agree-fewer names for everything would make the world a better place.

In my experience, YANBU. I've never understood why "alternative" parents (for want of a better word) care so much about the mainstream lot.

I've never come across a hardcore formula feeder, incidentally. Do they exist?

I think the kind of person who bangs on about their 'type' of parenting and feels the need to join groups regarding their 'type' is going to be the sort of person who is going to be quite, er, strident in their views to the point of judging and criticising. Ditto people who parent by an ideology and follow a set of rules rigidly rather than sometimes using their own judgement and common sense.

However I have mixed a lot of attachment parenting ideas in with my parenting but don't feel guilty or worried if I depart from some of the ideas involved or ignore some altogether.

I have friends who follow it a lot more purely but don't feel the need to 'announce' themselves as an attachment parent or discuss it in anything other than general terms if a subject comes up in conversation. I don't find them judgemental about it all.

I think the thing is that the people who loudly announce they are doing it tend to be the judgemental pains in the arse who will tell everybody how bad their parenting is. Therefore as they're the ones everybody knows are doing it people tend to view those doing it as being judgemental of others. But there are plenty of people doing it quietly who don't feel the need to boast about their parenting choices nor put down those of others. But by their very nature you wouldn't know they were doing it, so you wouldn't realize there are lots of nice non-judgemental people doing it when you only actually hear from their mouthier compatriots rather than them.

Miaow I also hate babywearing. It does reduce them to accessories.

It's not an AP thing, it's a social media thing predominantly. Forums encourage people seeking a constant validation of their own choices.

With AP, people do feel passionately that their methods are best for health and neurological development and emotional well-being. That can make people pretty keen. But plenty of APers understand people make choices for lots of reasons and aren't remotely idiotic about it.

The scariest group I've ever come across on-line is a 'baby led weaning group' where they practically tarred and feathered anyone who placed a broccoli floret in their child's hand - never mind use an actual spoon.

I would hate to align myself to a particular 'style' of parenting. Apart from the fact that i would feel like a total wanker labelling myself as a (for example) 'attachment parent', I would then be worried about ever deviating from that school of thinking - eg. I would look like a bit of a dick professing to be an attachment parent but then realising that actually it is easier to put the baby in its own room/in a pushchair/give it a bottle or whatever. It's a pressure that frankly I don't need!

I am so glad that my lovely NCT group were firmly in the 'fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best' style of parenting.

I've come across more non-AP-ers than AP-ers so tended to see more judgment going the other way.

Frequently been told I was putting my children at risk of choking because of doing BLW for example, or that I was failing to discipline my children just because I wasn't using a naughty step at 1 yr old, or that breastfeeding a child who could talk was "just wrong", or that I was denying my children independence/ruining their development by not "teaching them to self settle" so they would "sleep through the night".

I think people can see AP parents as being judgemental because they are often expected to explain why they are not doing things the "normal" way/the way their grandparents did it. It's very difficult to explain that it is a rational decision not just lazy parenting without giving away that for you the other option was inferior. I have learned to say a lot of "it suits us", "it's convenient" and bite back proper defences of our choices.

With close friends we tend to just say "we do it this way" and not enquire into the reasons and accept that we don't all do it the same.

I read a lot about AP years ago. CBA to look it up but isn't it based on:

• putting a baby's needs ahead of your own while they are small and responding to their needs quickly
• keeping them in close physical proximity to caregiver
• being empathetic and understanding of their development phases, following their lead rather than pushing them to the next stage.
• building strong bonds with primary care givers during the first year

Quite sensible I think.

I don't know how or when AP started to include cloth nappies, being a 'vaccine skeptic' (AKA 'natural immunity' advocate ) and not owning a buggy.

Whenever I've gone on these FB groups or sites though, those seem the primary concern. The term 'babywearing' (YUK) is typical of this - as though all the accessories of having a baby are the important parts of parenting. In that way AP parents (the kind who join a group or advocate on Social Media) seem more materialistic than conventional ones - the right sling, the right organic baby oil, the finest bamboo washable nappy liners, the personalised vaccination schedule etc.

To be clear, I'm not talking about Attachment Parenting broadly, just the type of parents who join online AP / Arnica Parents / Natural Parent groups. They are two different things.

I was an 'attachment parent' before the term was invented. I didn't give a damn about how other people parented but I wasn't going to use their methods with my precious child.

They felt judged, though. They were defensive. They felt threatened. I explained it to a similarly-minded AP; by breastfeeding on demand and co-sleeping, we were demonstrating (without saying or thinking) that their way of raising their children wasn't good enough for our babies. We didn't bother to think judgementally of others, we didn't say anything against them, but our actions were enough.

And that had to be; tough! Tough for those parents who didn't feel good enough because we were doing it differently. Tough for us who had to put up with their insecurities and how those affected friendships.

I'm not supremely self-confident but there is something about AP that is so 'right' it speaks to your soul and you know its right and you aren't about to give it up. Its not intolerance of others its just conviction that you are right. My way was right for me and my baby. What other people did was up to them.

namechange

I think VikingLady has it spot on.