I recently started hearing the term “attachment parenting.” I knew it had to do with women that wore their babies in slings and believed in a positive discipline approach. These things sounded great to me, so I did a little research on attachment parenting and I was very impressed.
The long-range vision of Attachment Parenting is to raise children who will become adults with a highly developed capacity for empathy. It eliminates violence as a means for raising children and will help to prevent violence in society as a whole. By providing a nurturing environment for our children, we can communicate better and build a relationship based on trust. This sounds like the kinds of morals I want to teach my 2 year old son.
According to Dr. Sears, Attachment Parenting is a style of caring for your infant that brings out the best in the baby and the best in the parents. He believes this style uses 7 basic tools. He calls them The 7 Baby B’s:
1. Birth bonding
a. The way baby and parents get started with one another helps the early attachment unfold. The days and weeks after birth are a sensitive period in which mothers and babies are uniquely primed to want to be close to one another. A close attachment after birth and beyond allows the natural, biological attachment-promoting behaviors of the infant and the intuitive, biological, caregiving qualities of the mother to come together.
2. Breastfeeding
a. Breastfeeding is an exercise in babyreading. Breastfeeding helps you read your baby's cues, her body language, which is the first step in getting to know your baby. Breastfeeding gives baby and mother a smart start in life. Breastmilk contains unique brain-building nutrients that cannot be manufactured or bought.
3. Babywearing
a. A baby learns a lot in the arms of a busy caregiver. Carried babies fuss less and spend more time in the state of quiet alertness, the behavior state in which babies learn most about their environment.
4. Bedding close to baby
a. Wherever all family members get the best night's sleep is the right arrangement for your individual family. Co-sleeping adds a nighttime touch that helps busy daytime parents reconnect with their infant at night. Since nighttime is scary time for little people, sleeping within close touching and nursing distance minimizes nighttime separation anxiety and helps baby learn that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a fearless state to remain in.
5. Belief in the language value of your baby's cry
a. A baby's cry is a signal designed for the survival of the baby and the development of the parents. Responding sensitively to your baby's cries builds trust. Babies trust that their caregivers will be responsive to their needs.
6. Beware of baby trainers
a. Attachment parenting teaches you how to be discerning of advice, especially those rigid and extreme parenting styles that teach you to watch a clock or a schedule instead of your baby; you know, the cry-it-out crowd. This "convenience" parenting is a short-term gain, but a long-term loss.
7. Balance
a. In your zeal to give so much to your baby, it's easy to neglect the needs of yourself and your marriage. As you will learn the key to putting balance in your parenting is being appropriately responsive to your baby – knowing when to say "yes" and when to say "no." [1]