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| "Woman Carries Baby In Sling In Chinatown" by paul_houle is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. |
I'm going to drop a truth bomb about what's commonly called "attachment parenting."
Sometimes, it kind of sucks.
I parent this way primarily because it's how my mother parented, and because it makes my life easier day-to-day. I breastfeed, and this style just seems to go hand in hand with that.
What the parenting books don't tell you though is that you're likely to be a lot more homebound than parents that use a more conventional method. There's a fair amount you'll have to say "no" to.
Oh, you'll hear about parents who travel the globe or take a cruise with their baby. Sometimes these people even have blogs or Instagram accounts dedicated to making you feel like an underachiever.
But what isn't usually admitted, either in the blogs or the parenting books, is that;
1.) Babies are only portable for a certain window of time. From birth to about six months, you can put them in a carrier and go on whatever adventure your heart desires. All they need is to be fed, changed, and held.
From six months on, all that goes out the window. Now they also need space to move and explore, and they get bored. You're not just holding anymore, you're wrestling them and keeping them from damaging stuff.
2.) You've got to plan your activities around what your kid can handle.
I once attended an event that went into the evening. Bitty Baby screamed at the top of her lungs the entire 45 minute drive home because she was tired and hates riding in the car at night. I've turned down evening invitations ever since then.
I once attended a birthday party for a friend in a restaurant. My baby hated the loud music and having to sit in my lap and squirmed and twisted and screamed until I walked her back and forth outside. I ended up leaving early.
I recently had to cancel a looked-forwards-to trip because it involved airplane travel and I know for a fact Bitty Baby will be a hot little ball of misery if we go (and by extension, I'll be a frustrated mess).
There's a lot I have to say no to because I know that my child will be miserable if we do it. And I can't leave her with a sitter (during evening hours or overnight) because I know she'll likely be traumatized and inconsolable if I do.
I don't know if my parenting this way will bring any benefits. I have friends who parent their children more conventionally who leave their babies for days at a time with their husbands or with grandparents, and the babies seem fine. I might be confining myself for no good reason.
And given that I'm Catholic and we kinda have a thing for having lots of babies, I might have several more years of this ahead of me (yes, we use NFP but a.) life finds a way and b.) part of Catholic marriage vows is being open to children). I'm not going to lie; that can be a pretty discouraging thought.
I guess I need to learn how to find a balance. If I'm going to be doing this for awhile, I need to make it sustainable. I don't know that I'll be able to do a complete overhaul of my parenting style, but maybe there are a few smaller things I can change.
I'm more comfortable leaving my children, even the youngest, with a sitter during the day. I guess I need to focus on that side of things more; what my children are capable of handling rather than what they aren't.
And yes, as the old ladies at the grocery store keep telling me, this is a short season and I'll miss these years.
Maybe I'll miss the years, but the days seem to be dragging on forever.
Your last line is the old chestnut "The days are long, but the years are short." True, though. I parent this way, too. My children have never even had a babysitter other than my mother-in-law. I've been away from them overnight for a total of 7 days in 12 years--4 of those nights in the last two years. I nursed them all, and didn't even have bottles for pumping with the last three. Literally no one fed them but me. They were with me all. the. time. when they were babies. It didn't bother me too much, though, because I'm a rather extreme homebody anyway. I do, however, know the feeling of feeling a bit stifled and hamstrung if anything does come up that sounds fun but you know it won't be because of the kids. My children still are very, very attached to me. It is hard on them when I leave to go anywhere, even just for a day, even the older ones. As you said, there are probably positives and negatives to that, but it's what I did, and I don't regret it.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I find it harder to let go now that they're older than I did to keep them close when they were younger. But that, too, I think is the right thing, and so I do it. Because it is not about me, and it never really was. Not a modern viewpoint, I suppose, but in the end, I guess I just live for my children and do what I feel they need, not what I might need. (I don't mean that in a crazed mom-martyr kind of way--just that I will always think of their needs and growth first, in everything. And I suspect that's what you're doing, too.)
Modern viewpoints are very overrated, lol.
DeleteI do believe that having baby close by is better for their development, and I think separation trauma is a real thing in babies.
I guess there are other things coming into this for me. I spent a good chunk of my life believing that my life and parenting were going to look a certain way, and now that I'm here, they don't look that way. Not a bad thing, but I'm finding I can do certain things with parenting different than I thought I would and it serves my children better than what I was originally going to do (for example, sending them to school. I grew up a "public school is the devil" homeschool kid, but now I send them to one, and they're flourishing). Not everything is as set in stone as I thought it was, and I think this aspect of my life is coming under some scrutiny because of that.
And I'm finding some of the "original plan" stands up to that scrutiny, and I think this style of parenting is largely part of that. But I do wonder about the details, and about NOT being a martyr (while still respecting my babies' needs). Trying to figure out the boundaries of where they'll be fine, and seeing if they're farther out than I thought. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.
First of all, I LOVE what you’ve written here! Secondly, my parenting has been a mix, started off with more of an attachment style out of necessity. I didn’t even realize that was the label for what I was doing. But as I continued to have more kids I realized there must be more schedule and order, for the sake of everyone, and that my kids learning to be ok with mom being away, sometimes even on an overnight, could help, not hinder their development, and certainly the overnights I’ve done have greatly improved my mood & outlook as a mom! I don’t care for all the modern labels we put on everything!! I use a mix of baby led/ parent led for sleep and food and potty training. And it goes on up to education and training in virtue, character ect. I say baby led bc I’ve had two truly colicky babies & you have to work with them. Also, we have family structure and rules of the house, but sometimes there are addressed differently with each little member according to temperament or personality or whatever we’re calling it these days lol. ALSO and I think this is missing in most parenting books, MY personality and my husband’s personality. It has to work a little for everyone or it’s doomed from the start. Whether it’s a stricter eat, sleep, play routine or your kid accepts more hustle and bustle & loves tagging along. I saw so many friends on the go with their babies, grab a diaper or two and be fine for the day. I felt like a huge failure with my first bc she was colicky and had anxiety & screamed in terror anytime a bearded man came within five feet of her. For my extremely social self, the first year was rough but we managed.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this wonderful post. I have a completely unscientific n=3 size group of kids I know who were parented in the spirit of "attachment parenting", (one of which is mine). And all of them are more independent and self-reliant then their peers who were parented in different philosophies. Not a judgment, but I like to think of it as a compensation for those first years LOL Does this give you some courage :-)
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I ever was an attachment parenting kind of mom, but I do know that personality of kids and parents can cause changes in what's important and adjustments the parenting philosophy. I have had all sorts of kids (n=11 maybe scientifically significant!), and we've tried all sorts of tricks, but it comes down to what you need to do to get through and if it's important enough, you'll find a way. I did however work outside the home, at least part time, for most of my mothering career, and so my kids had daycare or daddy at times instead of me. (Which is good because I get depressed if I'm home for too long without work - I'm not crafty or handy so I can't contribute to the family that way, and if I'm not working there's no money for daycare so I couldn't volunteer somewhere worthwhile). Most kids adjusted easily, some kids hated it for a while (like the two who wouldn't take bottles so I would nurse constantly for hours after getting home, or the one who refused to get off the couch at the sitter's for a year - funny in retrospect, hard at the time).
ReplyDeleteEven now, my kids are all over 8 yrs old - things can still be hard. I'm struggling with the fact that I have to wait around a lot and can't get much done. And I have a daughter with special needs who will be at home forever and will always need my attention in very physical ways. But we get through the down times and focus on what we can do. And eat too many cookies, but hey, I need some vice!
So please know what you're going through is normal (if not happy) and look at the long game. They forget to mention this sometimes in the parenting books.
We ended up attachment parenting which felt like *the only way* with our first rather intense (ok, bad sleeper and clingy) first kid. Four kids in, I wonder if some of the other ones might have taken to sleep training had we attempted it.
ReplyDeleteBeing on the Catholic open-to-life baby train, I also used to wonder if I’d ever again do xyz (leave a kid long enough to see a movie, go away overnight with my husband and no kids, run some errands alone without worrying about a kid needing to nurse or just have mom. I still tend not to do those when I have a little one (say under 9 months) but, hey! What do you know? Now I can get away with some of those for a good while before another one comes along. I think a huge part of it is that my younger kids, while maybe naturally more independent than my first, are also much happier with sitters (well, usually family or friends) as long as they are with their siblings, a benefit the first didn’t have as a baby or toddler. It is so nice! Those realizations plus a recent miscarriage have me appreciating that there’s not much point predicting or stressing about the future.