To think that I can have a full time job and still be an attachment parent?

[GingaNinja84]

All kicked off on my baby what’s app group. Basically I returned to work this week....couple days a week for a couple months, eventually going full time in the spring.

Mentioned this on my baby group what’s app, and another mum made a snarky comment about ‘how does it feel to be leaving all your work with attachment parenting behind?’

Am I wrong to be royally pissed by this, or is she right?

I get it. The main principles of AP imply that you’re barely supposed to be separated from your baby for those first few years. But I can’t afford that. I need to go back to work to pay bills and afford to raise my little one...and now this woman is making me feel like all of a sudden I can’t be attached to my baby any more?!

For the record....I’m still exclusively breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping and everything else AP entails. I just won’t be with my little girl between 9am - 5pm Monday to Friday.

AIBU to believe I can be an attachment parent and still work full time? Or am I physiologically damaging my child by going back to work? She’s 11 months old.

I'm so glad I found this thread! I'm going back to work earlier than planned after being offered a better job. I agonised over the decision as I thought it made me a bad mum. I still have my wobbles and wonder if I've made the right decision.

I’m just back full time, DS is 11.5 months old.
I was so torn about going back to work. Financially we could have just about managed but I’m glad I’ve gone back.

@user1478172746 I'm sorry....did you just say that pumped milk doesn't count as 'exclusively breastfeeding'?!?

So the hours and hours and hours AND HOURS I spent pumping liquid gold for my daughter, because of a consistent crappy latch after 3 attempts at correcting a severe lip tie mean absolutely fuck all? Because I didn't feed her directly from the breast? Even though it was all she ate (and continues to eat now alongside her solids...) for the first 6 months?

Fuck that. I genuinely find that comment more insulting than the woman in my baby group.

Try pumping breast milk for your child for nearly a year and and then have some-one tell you it doesn't count as exclusively breast feeding. I'm literally apopleptic with rage right now.

I’m sure you are mad, pumping is SHIT and such hard work. I’d say it’s actually harder than breastfeeding.

As with everything, surely most people will just take and leave certain elements of attachment parenting- even those who are self-proclaimed ‘AP parents’. For example, a mother who bed-shares, baby wears and whatever but also partially formula feeds. Are they now excluded because of this?

That post from user is bollocks from start to finish.

OP why are you so angry at a post by a stranger on the internet? You have done amazingly and pumped for a year to give your DC breastmilk, which presumably you did for the benefits and because you wanted to, not for validation from others.

Do those following attachment parenting not understand that attachment speaks to the time when you’re not with your child, as in an important, key element of attachment is that the child develops an internal working model of their bond and relationship with the carer which keeps them stable when the carer isn’t there. For that to develop it’s important that the carer/mum/whoever goes away and comes back again. Keeping baby physically attached at all times is going to utterly undermine their capacity to cope when apart from their carer - eg the exact opposite of secure attachment. FFS.

@Grumbley I know....it's all so stupid really isn't it? It's just the narrow mindedness and entitlement shown by an extremely small percentage of 'from the breast'-feeding mothers that really gets me sometimes.

I've genuinely had some mums at a breastfeeding support group ask me why I'm there before, and it really stings when you're busting your gut day and night to give your little person the best there is. It just presses all my wrong buttons when people don't understand the work that goes in to it!

I am not keen on the term " attachment parent". As opposed to what? Alienating parent?
Still, the woman in your group sounds a bit judgemental and smug.
Who cares if you are not AP by someone else's standards.
You can still BF and co- sleep when you are with your child .I did both when I went back to work.
I was never one for carrying baby in a sling or whatever but again you can absolutely do that when you are not at work.
So honestly, fuck her.

Oh and fuck that comment about pumping not being the same as breastfeeding.
I am not even sure why I am even mentioning it because frankly it doesn't even deserve a reply.

YABVU to refer to breastmilk as liquid gold. Get over yourself. You are doing your best as is everyone else. Are you meeting the gold standard, no you are not, but very few people do. I think it is odd to put a child in full time child care when they are so very young if you have a strong belief in attachment style parenting and that is probably where the other parents are coming from.

Who said liquid gold? Bloody hell some people...

@GingaNinja84 there's always going to be judgemental people who put you down, but it sounds like you've perserved in challenging circumstances, be proud whatever anyone says.

@lemonsandlimes123 why does liquid gold offend you? It's a colloquial term thrown around my support groups and used by a fair few midwives where I am. Also, at over £100 a litre for hospitals to buy in for preemies in NICU, I'd say it's a fairly valid term too

It's a colloquial term thrown around my support groups and used by a fair few midwives where I am.

But it’s also known as milk. Much easier to write and say. And also true.

”I'm sorry....did you just say that pumped milk doesn't count as 'exclusively breastfeeding'?!?

So the hours and hours and hours AND HOURS I spent pumping liquid gold for my daughter, because of a consistent crappy latch after 3 attempts at correcting a severe lip tie mean absolutely fuck all? Because I didn't feed her directly from the breast? Even though it was all she ate (and continues to eat now alongside her solids...) for the first 6 months?

Fuck that. I genuinely find that comment more insulting than the woman in my baby group.

Try pumping breast milk for your child for nearly a year and and then have some-one tell you it doesn't count as exclusively breast feeding. I'm literally apopleptic with rage right now.”

But...you’re worrying about labels again! Why on earth does it matter whether random stranger would or would not label the way you feed your daughter in a particular way? It is beyond disproportionate to be “apoplectic with rage” because of someone’s opinion about whether you meet some random invented criteria to fit a label some other random invented.

Just feed your child and parent your child and support your family, all in the best way you can.

If other people want to make themselves feel better and superior with this nonsense, let them knock themselves out.

And yes, labelling breast milk as “liquid gold” veers dangerously near the what-I’m-doing-is-better-than-what-you’re-doing territory.

I

If you really can't understand why people might find the term 'liquid gold' for breastmilk to be ever so slightly ludicrous not to mention self-aggrandising then I think you may fit in better in your whatsapp group then you would care to admit.

And yes, labelling breast milk as “liquid gold” veers dangerously near the And yes, labelling breast milk as “liquid gold” veers dangerously near the what-I’m-doing-is-better-than-what-you’re-doing territory.

Let’s be honest here, the very ethos of attachment parenting (and striving to achieve all of its many tenets) is I’m-doing-is-better-than-what-you’re-doing territory. it’s literally what drives APs to keep up with it.

It's not about that specific posters opinion. It's the whole idea that what we pumpers do is less valuable than those who feed from the breast.

When you're tiring yourself day in day out to keep your supply and make sure there's enough food for your daughter...yes, it's a fairly low blow to hear other mums tell you that what you're doing isn't as good as what they're doing.

ginja - which is exactly what referring to breastmilk as 'liquid gold' does to anyone who can't or chooses not to breastfeed. I am astonished you can't see that you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing others of.

As someone who pumped for a good couple of months before my DD could properly latch, pumping is the fucking pits and when we were finally able to switch to feeding from the breast, life was so much easier. I don't think people who haven't gone through a period of exclusive pumping really get it, though. I spent a lot of time on pumping groups on FB because there's a lot of ignorance about EP out there, especially among healthcare professionals sadly. Anyone who is able to EP for months on end is doing a bloody good job. I managed about 10-12 weeks and would have kept going, but thankfully I didn't need to.

As for liquid gold, I usually take that to mean colostrum (it's what the midwives in hospital called it) but breastfeeding/pumping is a really emotional thing so I can't get too worked up about someone using it to refer to breast milk. When you've spent so many hours a day pumping and then your DH accidentally spills a bottle of breastmilk on the floor, it sure feels like liquid gold

attachment parenting choice would be to dedicate at least the first year to your baby and then slowly gain your own life back while the toddler explores the world more and more Only if you're just a lowly woman though. Men can swan in and out as they please and the baby won't be affected. However if a woman so much as goes to the shop alone she may as well throw her child's future away.

It's misogyny at it's finest. Men hunt. Men strong. Women weak. Women make baby.

@DesLynamsMoustache thank you....I'm glad some-one else here understands it :)