when we were getting ready for snapper to be born and i was reading up in all the books, i was totally down and ready for attachment parenting. the dr. sears book was all over it, espousing it as the best way to raise your baby: keep them close to you, wear them all the time, let them sleep on/next/with you, and they’ll grow up loved and confident and self-assured. “sounds great, sign me up,” i said.
and then baby happens. between not sleeping for a couple of months straight and being overwhelmed at the maelstrom of conflicting advice out there, we were more than happy to try the suggestions of both our sleep training-espousing pediatrician and that sleeping through the night book. end result: snapper falling asleep on her own in her crib by three months. more or less sleeping through the night at four months.
great!
yet hmc points out to me that what we’ve actually done is to do the opposite of attachment parenting. instead of sleeping with our baby and keeping her near at all times, we’ve instead trained her to soothe herself to sleep on her own in her own room. i think this is called “abandonment parenting” by the attachment folks. between getting my nights back and for the sake of hmc’s sleep, i’m actually fine with the result, but i’m just surprised that i didn’t actually notice that we ended up this way. especially since i was so gung-ho about attachment parenting in the first place.
on the other hand, i talk to mamaluna and hear stories about how they’re still holding and rocking maya to sleep at seven months. which is fine for them, but NO THANK YOU.
now the only challenge is to keep mika out of snapper’s crib. at least ONE of us is still dedicated to attachment parenting. or attachment snuggling.
Posted at February 4, 2008 3:15 AM| TrackBackThe parents that wear their children around and let them sleep with them until they are potty trained/walking/move out are just plain nuts. They are all sleep deprived zombies who have forgotten how to live. They also jump up and “comfort” their child when it makes the slightest peep in their crib/co-sleeper/that bed that you used to make sweet love to your significant other but forever no more. Sleeptrain your child now and never look back. Throw in a bottle of scotch and a pack of pall malls while you’re at it.
Posted by: benabo at February 4, 2008 3:03 PMit’s true. when we were down there for xmas and slept in the same room with her, we could hear every little peep she made while sleeping, most of which woke us up but were of no consequence.
plus, she’s teething now, so the scotch might not be a bad idea.
Posted by: Ed Spunky at February 5, 2008 2:24 PM