Attatchment parenting

[allthegoodnamesweretaken]

jezebel.com/5909225/attachment-parenting-freakish-or-feminist

Has anyone read this?
Before I start, I'd just like to say as much as I support AP, I think that everyone should choose the parenting style that suits them.
I am an avid attatchment parent, and I personally feel that my style of parenting gave me a lot of freedom, DD has never been clingy and almost never cried as a teenyweeny, I think that had I not breastfed, co-slept and babyworn, she would not have been nearly as easy to care for and I would have struggled to continue my degree.
AP asks parents to keep constant contact with baby for the first 6 months and to respond to every signal from them, I think that 6 months is a fair ammount of time to recover from pregnancy and birth and to enjoy parenthood, after that initial 6 month period, solids are introduced, milk feeds become shorter and less frequent, plus baby is more mobile and more interested in their environment. After this time, others can help to care for the baby a lot more.
I understand that bf puts all the responsibility for feeding on the mother, but as the bf thread the other day discussed, there are more than enough things for the other parent to do to even things out.

I agree with Porpoisespit that the pitting of women against each other is pretty anti-feminist.

Thing is, I've breastfed my first child relatively long (18 months) and am on course to do the same with child no2, we co-sleep more than I actually would like, just so I can get some more sleep and I find slings very very practical, but the whole AP-philosophy sits uneasy with me - it just feels like it's putting an unduly heavy burden on the mother (whilst putting her onto a pedestal - possibly to make up for it) - that, in connection with the whole natural birthing stuff (which as I see it is quite closely connected, asks a lot of women to endure in order to keep their mother-goddess state. And any deviation is marked "failure". I don't like that type of pressure.

It's not really presented as choice either, as there is a lot of emotional blackmail used by proponents with claims that deviating would be damaging to the child.

I don't think theres anything inherently wrong with co-sleeping, long term breastfeeding, babywearing, as long as everyone involved is happy with it. It just shouldn't be compulsory, and if it starts impacting negatively on the family as a whole (mostly thinking of co-sleeping here), then that needs to be reviewed together as a family.

It assumes that any other parent is not attached to their DC. There is no 'method', different things suit different women and different babies. You feel sorry for the baby that likes their own space and just wants to be put down! They are not the same in the same family, DS1 was quite happy to be held a lot DS2 didn't. It is just different, not better.
People should read these people and take out what suits them, if anything.

I think any parenting "method" that suggests it is the only or the best way to raise a child is anti-feminist in practice. I don't think any of the AP practices (breast feeding, co-sleeping etc.) are anti-feminist in themselves and many of them are practices that women have followed for millennia (though without any pressure on society to provide the communal support women had). But they aren't inherently feminist practices.

I don't mean that it's just about choice - I'm not a choice feminist. I mean it's about women being entitled to find their own path and become the expert on parenting their own children instead of giving that power up to a "method". And the right to be able to adjust for the circumstances they find themselves in and the priorities they have without being told it is bad of them.

Exactly SuchProspects. I think that we have lost self confidence, it is easier to think that an 'expert' has the answers.

This has been in the media a lot recently. I don't know what to think really - I feel it's sad that the main person who is associated with AP is male, and has continued with a successful career despite 8 (?) children, I am assuming it was his wife who was doing most of the babywearing etc as I am struggling to continue any sort of life at all whilst APing 2 children!. I know she's a co-author on a couple of the books but he is definitely better known.why is it so often men telling women how to parent and give birth? Even the female 'gurus' like gina ford are professionals not mothers. Maybe mothers have learnt there's no one way and so don't feel able to write a book about it?

Chocolatecrispies, have you heard of Mayim Bialik PhD? She is a figurehead for the attachment parenting "movement" who has become an expert in AP through her own experiences. Here is her book beyondthesling.

She also plays Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory!