Calling all Attachment parents

[MummyBerryJuice]

So I totally buy into attachment parenting, extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping and don't think that we could cope with our high-need DS (7.5 months) if we didn't babywear etc but I'm coming under increasing pressure to resort to a more 'traditional' form of parenting. DH and I are happy ( if exhausted) but I sometimes feel my resolve faltering when DS has had a particularly demanding day/night. It often only takes a quick read of the Sears website or some such to reaffirm my beliefs.

I don't know any other AP in rl so it would be great to have a support type thread here.

All contributors welcome

Has anyone had a problem with weight loss and bf'ing? Ie I keep losing weight, I was 10stone before pregnancy, put on 2 1/2stone and am now down to 9, which is fine but I'm still losing weight. Can't ask anyone as everyone just says your so lucky and looks at me resentfully! I try to eat as much as poss ut ds has other ideas and there's no one else to take him so I can eat.

I lost alotnof weight in the first 2/3months and for a while ended up being 8st11lbs!. But my weight is slowly creeping up again and I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I have always maintained a diet very high in chocolate though

I've lost weight, but because I wanted to .

Hey mummy and others what food does your ds/dd like so far?

I lost a lot of weight through BFing, but sadly it seems to be creeping back on now I am back at work. booooo!

DD was very high needs, colicky baby, and I found that as soon as she went in a sling at 3 weeks old, everything changed.

Now she is at nursery 3 days a week since January when I started back at work and I can honestly say she has never ever cried once when I have left her. Even on her settling in sessions. I can't say the same for me, though! She is so confident, she has a little shy moment usually when she meets people for the first time, but within a few minutes she's sharing her toys around and chatting away. I'm very proud of her for that.

At the moment our bedtimes are a bit nightmarish. I bf her but she no longer falls asleep feeding, so I have to stop the feed after a while (about 15 mins usually) and she goes into her cot with a beaker of milk. But she wails and wails and wails! We don't leave her for more than a couple of minutes when we "change shifts" but if she quietens down while we are out of the room we will give her a bit longer to settle before one of us goes back in. DH is worried that she doesn't trust us at bedtime . Co-sleeping no longer works for us as she thinks it's all a game and just bounces about until she's over tired. Any suggestions?

How old is your DD pookamoo?

Oh, sorry, I think I said in an earlier post, she's 20 months.

Sorry pookamoo. I should have noticed that. Unfortunately I can't offer any advice as my DS is only so little still and we cosleep and bf to sleep. Perhaps someone else will come along to offer some strategies.

Thanks MummyBerry. I miss those cosleeping bf to sleep days. DD just stopped going to sleep during her feed one day!

Hi, I would like to join the thread please. I read the Continuum Concept whilst pregnant and loved the idea of it. Of course, quickly realised a lot of it wasn't terribly practical in real life... 100% skin to skin??? but have gone on with attachment parenting; BF on demand, co-sleeping, sling wearing, BLW etc. I am really happy with my choice and feel strongly that it is best for DD but it is starting to get harder now as more and more of my peers are putting their babies in their own rooms, dropping bf and finding their babies sleep through. Where as mine is still feeding up to 5 times a night snuggled in bed!

I don't mind for myself but I do get irriated with the slightly smug "well if you had done it my way and put your baby in a cot, your baby might sleep though like mine does".

glad I found this thread and can join the other still tired but snuggled up with their LO attachement parents!

Hello, really interesting thread - thanks. Have just been reading while 4 month old DD naps on my lap, firmly attached to boob, having refused to spend more than 20 mins upstairs asleep in cot!

Don't know much about attachment parenting - will have a google later!

Anyway, my experience has been:

Neither myself nor DH can stand hearing her cry so I have always fed on demand. (In spite of HV's advice to try and stretch to 4 hourly feeds when DD was about 2 months old!)

DD goes down in her cot quite happily after being fed to sleep. I feed her whenever she wakes in the night and bring her into bed with me at around 5.30am. (never admitted this at baby group or to any HV's!)

I didn't get a sling but if I ever do this again I will get a good sling as have to lug DD round the house with me at all times!

I do use cot, pram and the dreaded dummy on occasion so not sure if I qualify as really doing attachment parenting but think I agree with the principles of it as far as I know . . . will research further!

Well, I don't really see AP as a set of rules or even guidelines as such but rather intuitive and sensitive parenting. Where you respond consistently and sensitively to your child's needs. This includes bf on demand and often co-sleeping, babywearing etc n

I use a pram too and DS does go into his Amby for the beginning of the night (if he will go down in it).

I agree that the hardest thing to deal with is the smugness. I know that I am making him used to me responding to his needs and wants (that is after all the whole point) but the idea is that although it may be more intense now, it willhelp him to become a confident, secure and well balanced and secure child and adult.

What I think I find difficult is that our culture expects babies to do certain things (like sleep on their own) by certain times so when your doesn't you're met with 'Well. I don't want to say I told you so but...'

Anyone else dreading tonight then? Ds had practically no naps today, he's so willfull very overtired, praying for sleep....

We went to the show today and DS had practically no sleep and hardly any bf (will only feed in quiet places) so has been a bit of a nightmare tonight. He is now asleep on my chest.

It is lovely, really (especially as I can make DH bring me cups of tea!!) just hope that he sleeps more tonight than he did last night.

everything her naps are a bit weird, she will sleep for an hour and a bit at nurdery, which is the same as the rest of her group, (they all nap together) but if we are at home, she sometimes sleeps for up to 4 hours ! in the day! Even then she will sleep through usually from about 8 til 6 or 7.

We tried a different tactic last night as I am starting to think it's the bf causing the problem as she is associating bed with being told to stop the bf, which makes her !
So I bf her when she came out of the bath, all snuggled up in her towel, then we stopped the feed, she shouted a little bit but was distracted by nappy and pyjamas, we had a bit of a run about and a play, then a story and milk from a beaker, then DH put her in her cot. He had to pick her up once, but she settled far more quickly than usual. Going to try the same thing again tonight. I don't want to stop bf but the bedtimes are so upsetting at the moment!

Hi, I am glad to have found this thread as I am AP my 17 week DD. I must admit I didn't really mean to but she just likes to be held and nothing else will do. It also makes it easier to manage DS when I can just pop DD in a sling.
Anyway everyone in RL is forever telling me that I'm spoiling her and am going to have years of sleeplessness so it's nice to feel I'm not the only one!

I'm not sure whether I'm 'doing' AP as I've stopped reading parenting technique books and am just trying to find our own way. DD is nearly 1 year old and is still BF morning & evening and sometimes in the afternoon too when I'm not at work. She wakes 1-2 times a night and I BF her back to sleep. She's happy and smiley during the days, is left with our CM and recently PIL. She's a really confident baby.

We occasionally co-sleep, our bed isn't really big enough, though. DD does sleep in with me in the mornings and last night slept in my (lower) bunk bed (we're away running a kids camp!). Happy DD = happy family.

Sometimes she eats lots of solids, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes I feed her jars, sometimes she has what we have. I guess I'm saying, you just need to do what suits you at the time.

We've stopped the comments by not telling people what we're doing or that DD is not sleeping though. If asked, we say she sleeps fine (which she does until she wakes up!). Less information = less 'helpful' advice.

So glad to find this! I was on a co-sleeping support thread in 'sleep' a while ago, but came on here because it feels like this is about more than co-sleeping. I keep having moments when I doubt myself and worry I've made an awful mistake.

DS is 7 months. I love sleeping with him, love carrying him in the sling, love breastfeeding him. He's a bright, inquisitive, affectionate, generally happy little boy.

The problem is that he still wakes pretty much every single hour throughout the night, sometimes more, and has done since he was about 4 months. I feel quite sick sometimes when 'mummy' friends talk about sleep training and their babies crying for 2 or 3 hours, so am generally happy with our routine of feeding him whenever he wakes. It soothes him straight away and we're both usually back asleep within a couple of minutes. I don't feel too knackered.

The thing that worries me is that he wakes crying and seems really upset until I get my nipple to him. During the day he's sometimes quite grizzly and 'hard work', and I worry it's because he's tired. He usually manages 2 naps a day (with a lot of help from me). But he always wakes from naps crying and seems annoyed to be awake.

I've been trying to follow the No Cry Sleep Solution... the Pantley Pull-Off () hasn't made any difference. The last 2 nights I've changed the bedtime routine so that he has his story after his feed instead of the other way round. He has managed to go to sleep with just about 15 mins of patting, stroking and singing, but it hasn't made any difference to his night waking.

I've been telling myself that babies are supposed to wake during the night and it's normal, but I'm worried I'm kidding myself because even AP books seem to say that 2 or 3 times a night is normal... 2 or 3 times a night seems like a full night's sleep to me right now! I want to keep meeting his needs, but I'm worried that I've created this need in him by not having enough boundaries or routines and he would be much happier if he wasn't waking up as much.

Sorry it's a long one. Any thoughts/advice gratefully received!

Hello nellyjane, ds is 4 1/2 months, so can't give ou much advice. however I did find myself nodding along to your post, ds wakes hourly some nights, 2/3 hourly on a good night. Do you ever have good nights? Whats the longest he's ever slept for? Is he waking because he's hungry?
Problem I have with ds is that he has never slept for longer then 40 mins in the day, most of the time it's 10-20 mins. He is constatly over tiredand I'm at a loss tbh. He is used to being next to me so won't be moved, I can get him to sleep in the bouncy chair on the highest vibrate. But not for long. How are other ap parents with day time naps? How do you get them to sleep and where?
Saving up for a hammock but they're so expensive.

We do have good nights DarkAndStormy... when we have 2 or 3 hour stretches. They're few and far between, but they do happen! We had a phase of a few weeks up until he was 4 months when he used to consistently have a 4 or 5 hour stretch. There were even a couple of nights when he went 6 hours! But not for a long time now.

To begin with I consoled myself with the idea it was the infamous '4 month sleep regression' because of a growth spurt... but it never went back again I have heard of lots of babies who do though so perhaps your DS will?

Surely mine can't still be hungry every hour?! Mind you if I had a pound for every time I've said 'surely he can't be hungry...? Oh yes he is'

As for daytime naps - for a long time he would mostly nap in the sling, or on my lap after a feed, but gradually I started going to the bedroom and feeding him in the bed to sleep if I thought he looked tired so he mostly naps in the cot now if we're home. If we're out it's still the sling.

He hardly ever went longer than 30 minutes... pretty much to the minute! He has gradually started going longer now - up to an hour or even 90mins. I tried the NCSS thing of going in as soon as he stirred and trying to soothe him back to sleep before he properly woke up, but it never worked - he seems to have just started doing it on his own. I'm just hoping the same is going to be true of the nighttimes!

nellyjane are you co-sleeping at night? Is he waking distressed, your feeding him straight away in bed then finding he won't settle again?