New mothers need the whole story about AP.

[wenchystrumpet]

I believe some attachment parents are being disingenous when they say their approach was easier for them (compared to other ways one can be a loving mother).

AP approaches are associated with severe and long term sleep deprivation. So, AP may have other benefits, but is being easier generally one of them?

I acknowledge that AP may well be experienced as easier by some individuals.

My contention is that out of the chorus of voices saying "I'm so lazy" there must be a fair few who have hurt their backs from wearing a sling or got depressed from being housebound and are just not acknowledging this part of their experience.

Why is this a problem? It's a problem because I think new mothers are being told only part of the story about AP. Having had no experience of parenting at all, they hear many (but no doubt not all) AP advocates suggesting that this is an easy way to be a mother, when in fact it is a very intense way to mother.

Mothers with mental health concerns, for example, may not find it easier to scale back their work in favour of spending long hours mothering without the balance that work outside the home can provide.

And yes I know AP is an 'approach' or a 'toolkit' but everyone knows certain ways of doing things are considered preferable.

But it's proven that children who sleep with or close to their mothers have a lower incidence of cot death. It is proven that formula feeding has far more risks associated with it that bf. So in this era of modern medicine to support mothers is it not plain to see that keeping your baby close and feeding the baby from the breast is the optimum scenario. For mother and baby's health. And if you can't bf or cosleep you can follow the principles and adopt it to your own life. The only thing I don't like about AP is the label.

Oh don't worry, this thread will soon devolve into "BF vs FF" just like the other thread.

I believe some attachment parents are being disingenous when they say their approach was easier for them (compared to other ways one can be a loving mother).

One can be a loving mother in many ways. I think some people do genuinely find the AP approach easier for them. That's fine - there are several women on the other thread who have found it suits them to keep the baby with them downstairs until they go to bed, for example. That's fine too.
My Ds wouldn't do that and j wouldn't want to do that, and that's fine too.

We do some AP things - I breastfeed, we co sleep. I don't use a sling because my back is fecked. I think like many parents I just do what works and muddle through. I'm sure slings are great but they don't work for us. And that too, is fine.

The only problem with any 'type' or philosophy of parenting is when it stops being 'you could try this' and starts being 'you should be doing this.'

There are many good ways to be a parent. AP is just one. An extreme approach to anything is rarely a good idea. There's no One True Path to parenting and anyone browbeating anyone else into slavishly following a specific ideology is wrong.

TreeBird16 Is it proven? Who proved it? How? Why did they go about asking the question about infant-mother distance and cot death?

The dmail: that is no good either, I hate to think that anyone is intimidating new mothers for any reason. AP or the opposite. I do not have a problem with AP except when it is damaging to women's wellbeing, which it can be and which we need to be honest about.

I'll say it again. If it works for someone they should go with it.

Mindfulness meditation has risks. Even pure water has risks if you drink too much. AP advocates need to be honest about the risks of AP.

AP approaches can, for some, be unhelpful to sleep and relationships and new mums need to know about that.

Just like they need to be aware that formula companies may try to persuade them not to breastfeed, or workplaces may pressure them to come back sooner than they want to.

Other people describe me as an ap parent. I didn't know there was even such a parenting style when I had dd1 17 years ago. I did the stuff that made my life easier and that involved a lot of AP stuff. I tried for the first 2 weeks to get her to sleep in her own cradle but I only got a maximum of 1 hours sleep each night. I was on my knees, until somebody mentioned that it's possible to bf lying down, so I did that once, we both fell asleep and she slept for 4 hours in my bed, so co sleeping became my default because we both slept better. We stopped when she was about 18 months because it was something we'd both grown out of. She also hated the pram, so I borrowed a sling and she loved it.

The things that worked with dd1 were the things I tried first with dd2 because I knew how to do those, and they kept the pair of us happy. I also used cloth nappies with dd2 because I hate the thought of all the landfill with disposables. That was more work, but not massively, just a couple more loads of washing a week. And I did blw with dd2 as well, because it seemed more sensible than purées.

I was way less stressed with my babies than the parents who worried about routines and making sure they were home for naps, etc. But that worked for them, I never criticised their choices at all. I wish they'd extended me the same courtesy, but everybody was always making some comment about my funny ways, or criticising me for still bf at 18 months (why stop when it didn't bother me and dd still wanted it?).

Parenting is supposed to be about what works for your own family. If something works then carry on, if it doesn't then try something else. I've never seen any pressure to follow AP, but have experienced a lot of pressure not to. I don't understand how AP can cause someone to be housebound, I was back at work ft by the time dd2 was 6mo, and we'd had plenty of nice days out before that. And plenty of marriages suffer after babies are born, babies are hard work no matter what method you use to raise them.

+1000 Mrs mermaid.

A long time ago, I used to spend quite a bit of time reading mothering.com. AP definitely negatively affected some of those women, but had minimal affect on the fathers. It was the women who were taking years out of the workforce because ap didn't use childcare. And then they often homeschooled right through the the college years. It was invariably the mothers who went to bed at 7pm because the 5 year old children couldn't sleep alone. It was the mothers who washed the cloth diapers. It was the mothers who often didn't have a social life beyond their children. And the mothers who couldn't leave a shitty relationship because they'd put the children first for 5, 10, 15 years and had no recent work experience (the benefit safety net being significantly less in the US.)

So at the extremes, yes it can negatively affect women. A bit of sling wearing and co sleeping, big whoop.

But oh god, the JUDGMENT from some of those AP was extreme. Hundreds of posts about how heartbroken they were for their neighbour's baby who used Pampers. Or vaccinated. Or, God forbid, fed poison (formula) to their baby.

Surely what you are actually saying g is all parents should keep a sense of perspective, assess what working and what isn't, assess what they would be comfortable with, or couldn't do and move from there.
This would be true in regards to any 'parenting philosophy' or advise not just ap.
The trouble is with anyone who says this worked perfectly for me and would work perfectly for you too and is the only way anyone e should parent. When it's much more personal than that.
The trouble is as new parwnts are very vulnerable and want to do their best and sometimes get fixated on a certain way of doing things. But this isnt unique to ap.
In fact ap is often a welcome alternative for people who have been told Gina Ford/routine/sleep training in/rod for own back comments.

"But oh god, the JUDGMENT from some of those AP was extreme. Hundreds of posts about how heartbroken they were for their neighbour's baby who used Pampers. Or vaccinated. Or, God forbid, fed poison (formula) to their baby."

Some of this verges on the mentally unwell/obsessive. I have seen a lot of it here in Ireland but in a patriarchal culture where women's bodies are public property I think it reflects the agitation of this oppression so it becomes a social ranking activity based on threat and status.

I really believe extremes like this are reflective of and an understandable reaction to systemic oppression in many cases.

Fusion, your Marxist/materialist analysis is thought provoking, thanks.

Betty, yes, it is those damaging outcomes that need to be part of the conversation as well as the experiences of those who find AP easy and pleasurable.

"But oh god, the JUDGMENT from some of those AP was extreme. Hundreds of posts about how heartbroken they were for their neighbour's baby who used Pampers. Or vaccinated. Or, God forbid, fed poison (formula) to their baby."

But that's nothing to do with Attachment Parenting!

Nothing at all do to with AP? The previous poster is quoting AP supporters, who made these comments publicly on an AP forum.

That's like saying a person who quotes from Storm Front members posting on Storm Front has said nothing at all about fascism.

Yes it is, because AP (to them) was the one, true way. Everything else was inferior parenting and there was an immense pressure to confirm. Anything less was failing your kids, even if it broke the parent.

No I think it's like quoting aresholes being arseholes.

I think this is a really interesting issue. Firstly, I've no bias against AP, I think we should do exactly what makes us and our babies content.

BUT, I think the impression exists (and no it won't accord with many/most people's reality) that some ways of parenting are 'better', more committed, more fully maternal. And that other parenting styles are lazy, easier, more artificial. I think this is a problem for women and a feminist issue.

Extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, a non- interventionist birth, are a standard to be aspired to in many circles. We know many women feel a great sense of failure when one or more of these things doesn't happen.

A elective cs, formula feeding, routine led mother can be judged negatively, in my experience. And there are real issues about what parenting styles are possible for a woman who needs to go back to work as soon as possible.

Basically, so much about motherhood is used as a stick to beat women with and sometimes AP stuff can be part of that.

I think this is a really interesting issue. Firstly, I've no bias against AP, I think we should do exactly what makes us and our babies content.

BUT, I think the impression exists (and no it won't accord with many/most people's reality) that some ways of parenting are 'better', more committed, more fully maternal. And that other parenting styles are lazy, easier, more artificial. I think this is a problem for women and a feminist issue.

Extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, a non- interventionist birth, are a standard to be aspired to in many circles. We know many women feel a great sense of failure when one or more of these things doesn't happen.

A elective cs, formula feeding, routine led mother can be judged negatively, in my experience. And there are real issues about what parenting styles are possible for a woman who needs to go back to work as soon as possible.

Basically, so much about motherhood is used as a stick to beat women with and sometimes AP stuff can be part of that.

Arseholes who strongly identify with AP and post on AP fora in great numbers, where their non-nuanced opinions may impact on new mothers.

How about we just don't tell women how to parent? AP is one idea among many. Anything which claims that one way is better or worse than another is disingenuous because there IS no one right way to do things.

I think cosleeping is part of ap? Im in the situation where my 7yr old is still in my bed. I say my because me and my husband now all cant fit in our bed so one of us sleeps in another bed. And this isnt something we wanted. He chose to always sleep in our bed.

There is a definite issue about new mothers getting corralled into "tribes" and feeling like anyone slightly outside of the tribe is "against" them - I certainly got pulled into this. But I don't know that that is a feminist issue. I think it's more perhaps about the separation of adults and children in our culture, so that babies are something alien, so that new mothers are isolated, that there is a lot of advice being literally sold and competed for in a marketing way which can be confusing, and is really unhelpful.

It's a feminist issue that women are told "You must parent in X way because it's the best and if you can't/don't want to do it then you're a failure as a mother."

It's also a feminist issue when women are told "You're mothering too much, it's for your benefit, you're being selfish".

"How about we just don't tell women how to parent?"

Of course. But we do, constantly, and it's women doing it. It's women being evangelical about whatever thing they think is best and acting as if any other choice is bad for the baby.

How many bunfights have we seen on MN alone about the benefits or otherwise of various birthing/feeding/parenting choices? And we're pretty reasonable to each other! It's really easy for new mothers to think "I must do x no matter how hard I find it or I'll have failed".

It's not AP, it's the whole damn thing!

It's also a feminist issue when a woman is expected to be sexually available as soon after giving birth as possible...........

Yep I think arseholes are arseholes. They come from all walks of life and make life harder for ordinary folk who aren;t arseholes.

Now if we could outlaw people being arseholes I think that is something I could get behind. But ensuring AP parents give everything a warning is a but unworkable.

What would I do write something like this every time i talk about parenting?
I found cosleeping worked for me {for the interests of new parents please be advised that AP suggestions may not work for you}