Re: this bloody Facebook group?

[Rozdeek]

Am on this fb group whose philosophy is "attachment" parenting based. I do a lot of attachment parenting things myself but just cos I like them - I hate parenting labels.

Anyway today this poor woman has posted asking for advice on how to stop co sleeping as she is knackered and wants her evening back as baby won't sleep without her there and wakes up when she goes. Baby is 15 months. I think this is fair enough. No. Instead of helpful advice, or sympathy, she just gets loads of stuff along the lines of "why would you want to stop co sleeping?" and people insinuating she is selfish for wanting time to herself.

Someone else posts asking for advice on "natural" teething remedies as she doesn't like using calpol. Cue loads of people saying to try Amber teething bracelets . Yes. Let's put a choking hazard on my baby. That's much better than a small dose of paracetamol.

I do follow a lot of attachment parenting methods but I cannot buy into the above load of crap. I also hate that "co sleep/wear a sling" appear to be solutions to all problems. My baby hates both of these.

AIBU?

I have de joined said fb group before anyone jumps on that one.

The anti vaxxing and the wheel chair one that left me

I think I would punch anyone who that any of that twaddle to me

Twat omg that is awful

need

Mn would have a field day with both of them

I'm sure there was something on MN like that wheelchair one lately!

I bf ds until he was 7 months old as my milk was drying up unbeknown to me until he got admitted to hospital looking like a gaunt wee skeleton for losing too much weight. I was upset to stop bf but that paled at the relief that the high calorie formula the hospital put him on put him on the road to recovery. He was on it for a couple of months and switched to normal formula. Hes now a strapping 1yo and doing just fine.
It doesnt matter if you bf or ff it is what suits you and your baby best and to fuck with what anyone else thinks! They are that sad they have to judge another mum for her choices that is just totally not needed when mums should help each other out not snipe because oh your doing something different to me

Blerg I think you're spot on with the identity thing- it's all quite tribal isn't it.

This is my personal fave... So crunchy and totally believes it all until it becomes 'mainstream'. HAHA!!!

I will never understand human beings. Just when you think you do, you get someone who pushes the boundaries with shit like that

Incidentally, I use a sling and have never let my baby CIO and haven't done controlled crying and had my baby in a co sleeper until she was 8 months old. I am just not a dick about it. If you want to Gina Ford, good for you. If you want to AP, good for you. Let's all just support each other, doing what's best for one another's families.

four omg! She's a hipster crunchy type! 😁 Now things are mainstream whatever next?

I am doubting their effectiveness now they are mainstream!!! Peak crunch!!!

they're not your kind of people, that's ok, just leave the group. No big deal. No need to bitch about it, each to their own

pink

Actually we do a lot of the same things

My problem is how they speak to knackered women asking for advice.

I would consider myself an 'attachment parent'.

But I do get very frustrated with the smug superior attitudes of some members of FB groups about attachment parenting.

Like I'm all for letting kids express themselves but if a kid has a tantrum (as one mum talked about a long time ago) and starts kicking her, so I say it's perfectly acceptable to kindly but firmly restrain a child who is full on attacking you, people have attacked like I suggested putting her in shackles and beating the soles of her feet. Err no, your kid may be expressing themselves but they need to learn APPROPRIATE ways of expressing themselves. You don't have to let them attack you.

I co sleep with my youngest who is nearly 5. He has his own bed (in fact he has two available) but he doesn't sleep in them. He sleeps wonderfully now but didn't sleep through the night until just after he turned four. And he would never sleep without me. I'm a single parent and for a good two years I barely slept and I was absolutely CRAZED from sleep deprivation. Yet when I expressed that I hated co sleeping (in the hopes of at least some empathy, if not sympathy) I was met with horror. I said if I ever had another child I absolutely would no co sleep, and several people implied I was a cold and neglectful parent. I mean really?!?! I was just trying to keep my sanity. It was very hanging on by a thread for a while 😂

Parents need to do what works for them. If co sleeping doesn't work for the mum in question, then ffs she needs to stop. The last thing you need is to end up resenting your children just to fit in the 'attachment parenting' box. Eff that!

YANBU. Both mine co-slept with us because I was beyond tired with the night waking, but they were ready to strike out and sleep on their own before 15 months. Loads of FB groups I'm on operate on this basis though - everyone is apparently supportive until someone unwittingly lets the side down by suggesting something that someone else thinks doesn't conform to the group, then all hell breaks loose. I'm in a decluttering group which descends into fights every so often because someone proudly posts a picture of their child's room that they've decluttered and gets a ticking off for not forcing the child to clean it up themselves under threat of all kinds of draconian punishments.

I have a pushy "gentle parent" on my FB. Some of the tripe she comes out with makes me want to scream. I have to sit on my hands at times.

I did BF for two years, co slept and had a sling, but that was more down to my "whatever works" approach to parenting.

What do APs DO when their youngest child stops breastfeeding (at around six, I'm guessing) and/or can no longer be carried in a sling? And no longer wants to co-sleep?

When the very essence of your identity becomes "attachment parenting" and all that goes with it - namely feeling judgey and superior, in my experience - how do you cope when your children leave the BF/child wearing/co sleeping stage?

I guess you could join MN and carry on haranguing women over their choices well into your dotage. I can think of a couple here like that...

When the very essence of your identity becomes "attachment parenting" and all that goes with it - namely feeling judgey and superior, in my experience - how do you cope when your children leave the BF/child wearing/co sleeping stage?

IME They home school them.

I also hate labels. If someone else put a label on me, they'd probably say I was an AP.

I BF'd til DD was 3 (I'm almost 3 weeks of being BFing free and I feel like running up the hills singing a la Whatsherface from sound of music), co-slept (but only because DD was a massive PITA sleeping in a cot and we gave in) and did BLW (because I couldn't be arsed mushing up food and it meant I could each while she chucked carrots about). So I fit in well-ish in the AP groups but agree some have an air of superiority and heaven forbid you stop enjoying parenting for one second, or send your child for a sleepover at granny's house before the age of 18, they will find you and they will BURN YOU!!

IME They home school them

D'oh, of course they do! I'm an acquaintance of one so I should have figured that out myself

She was the crunchiest of the crunchy, but now she can't lord it over women for her superior baby rearing choices, I see her occasionally popping up on FB whenever someone is talking about schools. She cannot RESIST an opportunity to talk about how GLAD she is that her special snowflake doesn't have to go to school, that their life is just spent skipping through meadows while typical kids are locked in cells classrooms. Haha.

I think it is a bit mean to mock the silver boobies etc. For lots of women breastfeeding is an achievement. With one of mine I was quite unwell and keeping breastfeeding was difficult at times, having goals in my head like "silver boobies" really helped. I have also had children close together so have had to feed two children at once - I was pleased that I had managed it. That didn't mean that I looked down on anybody who bottle fed.

Breastfeeding to me is one of the ultimate examples of female power and should be celebrated and if that means silver boobies etc it is doing nobody and harm and is probably doing a lot of good.

What do APs DO when their youngest child stops breastfeeding (at around six, I'm guessing) and/or can no longer be carried in a sling? And no longer wants to co-sleep*

I would probably be seen as an attachment parent. When my children want to stop any of the above and it is not just a momentary whinge we just stop - just like any other parent.

When the very essence of your identity becomes "attachment parenting" and all that goes with it - namely feeling judgey and superior, in my experience - how do you cope when your children leave the BF/child wearing/co sleeping stage?

As I said I would be seen as an attachment parent and I don't think that I am superior and have no grounds on which to judge others . If I compare myself to the average MNer I suspect that I come off worse rather than superior when it comes to parenting tbh which is why I rarely if ever give parenting advice unless I am repeating what somebody else says and even then I would feel like a fraud. Most of us are just doing what feels right and works in the context of our family setup.

I've enjoyed reading this thread - but I can't decide whether to mock the "silver boobies" thing or if I'm actually a bit jealous and want to celebrate my rack with some stickers or something.

So I googled: there are so many levels!

I got a lot of support from the Can I Breastfeed In It off topic group, but ended up leaving because some of the threads were so judgmental. Some members seemed to think that intervening in other people's parenting was not only a right but a responsibility.

I remember one thread started by a woman whose (not particularly close) acquaintance had returned to work after maternity leave, leaving her child in the care of her MIL. The poster had seen the MIL feeding the child some frothy milk from the top of a cappuccino, and failing to disinfect a chair in a cafe before the child sat in it. She was asking the group whether she should contact, or even arrange a meeting with, her acquaintance to let her know how badly the MIL was looking after the child. The consensus in the group was that of course she should and that any mother would want to be told that these things were happening.

What I can't work out is if it's cumulative with successive babies. Can I add on where I'm up to with DS2 from where I got to with DS1? Are my boobies bronze or what?